Remembering Whitney Hubbard

I want to remember Whitney Hubbard and his wife. They were my mother’s friends in Greenport Long Island during the Second World War, 1941-43.

Whitney Hubbard taught my mother watercolor. She included me though I found it boring. The first class was private at our house. I painted, labored over, a picture of the doghouse. I chose it because it related to my dog, King.

One day when we were painting on the pier in the Village of Greenport my mother looked up to see me diving off the end of the pier into the harbor. I had taken advantage of her distraction to beg a dollar to buy a bathing suit and the next thing I was in the water. That was the last time she asked me to paint with the class.

I remember Whitney as grey haired, a small slender frail looking man in a dark suit with hat and tie. He may have had a little mustache. I remember him as being quiet and patient. He and his wife lived in a run down house in the village across from the Episcopal Church and up the street a bit. I went there often with my mother. His wife whose name I will try to remember was probably manic at times but she greatly amused my mother. She was very funny. She was large, with a prominent nose, a bit over weight and had brown hair. They seemed an incongruous couple to me.

Mrs. Hubbard was a musician. One of their sources of income were her engagements to play the piano. She may have played the organ at local churches as well.

I remember her description of one of the “Ladies” clubs in the village. She imitated one of the fat ladies with a big bottom seating herself at the piano bench. My mother and I were in hysterics.

You entered their house through a gate and stepped into an over grown and neglected garden. Kind of like an enchanted forest to my child’s eyes. Their house had a lot of plants. The floors were uneven and it was musty. I remember a green house room along one side with lots of windows and a brick floor. It did look to me at aged eight to ten, like it was about to fall down.

The Hubbards were very poor. Mrs. Hubbard always had tea for us when we stopped by. My mother tried to help them by taking lessons and buying one of Whitney’s paintings

Fire!

In 1935, when I was three years old my mother took the opportunity to teach me about fire. The Rossiter House in Nyack, New York had burned. The roof was collapsed and the windows were gaping dark holes. There were streaks of smoke across the exterior, a bleak scene indeed.

“This is what happens when children play with matches.” She said.

The scene emerged from the oldest memories stored in the deep recesses of my brain where first traumatic scenes are encoded.

Today I went with my friend Eugenia to view what is left of her condominium association building in Lexington Massachusetts.

“I’ve seen this before,” bubbled up in my minds eye. We stood looking at the big brick historic building, the Hancock School on the National Register. Workmen setting up a Pigeon trap on the roof had ignited the roof with their acetylene torch.

What a sad scene. The thick brick walls and chimneys stood clean, almost new looking, but the slate roof looked like some broken rollercoaster ride created by the "Mad Hatter". It heaved and sagged, gave way to the burned timbers that had supported it these one hundred and ten years. The rough edges of the slates dangled as if still trying to cover and protect that top floor. The fourth floor under the roof was totally burned out. Across the facade the windows of the third floor were dark holes.

Eugie and I stood at the yellow tape looking up to the windows of her unit. She was on the third floor, a home to twenty-five people, four floors, four units on each, twenty-five souls who called this building home. They are now caste upon the waters to find a new berth. No one was hurt. Most residents were at work. Eugenia's bedroom windows are intact but the window to her sitting room was gone. We heard there was only water damage on the third floor.

Eugie had been stopped as she turned into her street.

“There is a fire.”

“At what address?”

“33 Forest Street”

“That’s where I live.”

I have her with me now, in my extra bedroom. We are both in shock.

“I’ve lost everything.” She says.

Slowly, protectively, her mind recalls the material representation of her life.

“Its just things” she says. Then later, “I feel sick to my stomach.”

How do you deal with such a loss, death come early, books, Manuscripts. Photographs, Antiques passed on by your parents.

My twins started kindergarten here. One had suffered from school phobia after the neighboring building where they walked in a line for gym, burned down.

“I always thought it was a fire trap.” He said.

Remember Jane Swift?

Remember Jane Swift? You would have to be from Massachusetts.

She came to my mind when I saw John McCain choose Sarah Palin to be his vice president.

Jane Swift’s story should be one of caution for Sarah.

You have to go back to William Floyd Weld our Republican Governor who chose Paul Cellucci to be his running mate.

After a couple of years in the Governors Office Weld grew bored and decided he would like it better as American Ambassador in Mexico City.

Now Jessie Helms was the gatekeeper for Ambassadorial Appointments and he did not like William Weld. Weld spent some time sitting in Jessie’s outer office waiting to be interviewed and appointed. It must have been very demeaning and embarrassing for Weld. After and extended period cooling his heals and being ignored he went off to join a law firm in New York City.

Meanwhile back in Massachusetts, Paul Cellucci stepped into the Governorship. When he ran for election on his own merits he felt he needed to carry the western part of the state to win office.

Enter Jane Swift, the unknown mayor of North Adams? Or was it Pittsfield. Jane welcomed the opportunity to take the stage on Beacon Hill.

All went well. She and her husband conceived and bore twins!

Then Paul Cellucci was appointed Ambassador to Canada and there was Jane, Governor! There were the twins still in the Berkshires. She was criticized for taking the State Police helicopter home on the weekends.

Jane was willing to run again on her own merits. I liked her because, by executive decree she shut down the “Filthy Five” power plants that were poisoning coastal Massachusetts, especially Salem.

However along comes Mitt Romney who decided he wanted to be the Governor of Massachusetts. What he and his machine did to Jane was not pretty. I don’t know the details but you could see it in her face that she had, like Daniel, been in the lion’s den.

I recount this as a cautionary tale for Sarah Palin. She doesn’t even know WHAT SHE DOESN’T KNOW!

Twilight at Montecello

by Alan Pell Crawford

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Being retired and elderly my self I am interested to see how others reach closure on their lives.

What interested me is the consistency of Jefferson's response to the ebb and flow of his life. Denial was his main ego defense and he honed its use till there was barely a pause between the event and his response.

You realize you are dealing with a good man beset by what he wanted and his ability to deliver for himself and his family. You are saddened by the life he dealt his grandson Jefferson Randolph, then self protectively blaming Jeff for not finishing his education.

Reading about his son in law and his grand daughters husband, Charles Bankhead one wishes that AA had been created 200 years earlier. Jefferson was remarkably insightful in his realization that Alcoholism was a medical illness.

Jefferson spoke to me when he wrote,

"When you and I look back on the country over which we have passed, what a field of slaughter does it exhibit! Where are all the friends who entered it with us, under all the inspiring energies of health and hope? As if pursued by the havoc of war, they are strewed by the way, some earlier, some later, and scarce a few stragglers remain to count the numbers fallen, and to mark yet, by their own fall, the last footsteps of their party. Is it a desirable thing to bear up through the heat of action, to witness the death of all our companions, and merely be the last victim?

I recommend this thoughtful book to you.

Agriculture for Profit

By a circuitous route I arrived at Vicksburg: a People at War, 1860 to 1865, by Peter R Walker.

This little book is a very interesting read. It presents the experience of a city under siege from the view of the inhabitants. It is a romantic book and glosses over the reality of the pain and suffering with the veneer of heroics. You get the feeling and idea that this was a people of a different era, immune to the suffering depicted in the modern press and literature.

There is no discussion that would lead to a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, though there must have been such symptoms under a different name.

The city endures daily shelling from both the river and Grant’s siege from the surrounding land. People starve and people hoard. They dig into the ground and live in caves.

What caught my attention was the account of the continued production of cotton, in the face of the extreme need for food crops. Plantations continued to plant cotton because of the high price they would get for the crop if they could successfully run the blockade.

Corn for ethanol? Poppies for Opium? This is capitalism as applied to Agriculture. Where is agriculture policy? It is the modern day equivalent to cotton on the national and international scale.

Granted, Afghanistan is a failed state in the hands of drug lords. Afghanistan is headed for a big hunger, addiction and HIV morass. It is spilling over into Iran and all along the delivery routes. Opium is more toxic than cotton.

Should I be surprised about the New York Times Home Section slobbering over Australian Outback Architecture?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/garden/03australia.html

Some lady who “divorced well” has spared no expense to borrow features and transport them to Sonoma California.
“The interiors of the main house are a shrine to Australian art and craft.”

Now I lived in two out back houses in Alice Springs in 1959 and 1966. I found nothing redeeming about their architecture. Mostly they were tin roofed ovens surrounded by a louvered porch.

One had its septic tank outside the back door between the bathroom and the laundry house. It was covered with sheets of tin for easy access.

Our family roasted in the summer and froze in the winter. I made kangaroo skin inserts for our shoes after getting frostbite standing on the interior floors during the winter.

Our thoughts about how one might improve on “bush” housing revolved around starting a company that built bermed houses.

Ms. Dodwell’s “Art Studio and Massage Room” triggered my memories of the “meat house” at Brunette Downs Station on the Barkley Tablelands, 1960. The shadows and the slats took me back to the time we were offered fresh meat. “Go to the meat house and help your selves. We just butchered a beef.”

We stepped inside the simple structure to see a large table in the middle of the concrete floored room. The table was heaped with pieces of red meat. We took a small piece and cooked it on a shovel over a campfire that night.

What can I say? Money corrupts? Money allows one to indulge whatever crazy enthusiasms one entertains? Waste not. Want not.

Where the Oil Hits the Tank

My final oil bill for the season arrived today. I had been paying $140.00 a month for 10 months so I was surprised to see that I still owed $458.67.

The office of my Oil Company, Arlington Fuel Oil Co, Inc. is at the end of my street. I thought I would go and get their help understanding my rate of use, success at conserving, in short find out how they think I am doing.

We reviewed my house, new windows, heavy insulation in the ceiling and walls and a programmable thermostat.

After an intra-office struggle with their computers, the Campbells, Father, Mother, and Son got me a print out that showed everything in black and white.

I’ve gotten four deliveries this heating season. Starting with a full tank and ending with a full tank, I used 442 gallons this season for heat and hot water. The first delivery was $2.82 a gallon. The second was $3.45 a gallon. The third was $3.62 and the fourth was $4.69.

“You did very well.” “Most of our customers living on the ground floor of two family homes used about 900 gallons.“

Mrs. Campbell held up a three-inch stack of order slips.
“These are the people who didn’t want us to top them off at the end of the season. Some of them haven’t paid their bill.”

As I went out the door, Mr. Campbell said, “Don’t sell that house.”