Pioneer Day: The Rest of the Story

I celebrated Pioneer Day by flying to the Rockies (one state to the east) in great comfort for a work conference. I walked a mile to church (and back), honoring my ancestors. Elder Marlin K. Jensen, as part of the celebrations in Utah, discussed the mostly forgotten stories of the Native American tribes who lived there before the pioneers arrived.

With villages and camps clustered primarily in the valleys but also in arid locations usually near water sources, the Indians regarded the land as sacred and were strongly attached to it, he said. "The land and its bounty were critical to their existence." Unfortunately, useful land was scarce, he noted. "From the day the 1847 pioneers first put their plows in the ground, "settlement" for them would mean displacement for Indians." 

Though there was sometimes conflict, he emphasized the attempts on both sides to respect, tolerate, and accommodate.

He quoted the reminiscence of Velate Richardson who, when interviewed at age 99, credited Indians with teaching Mormon pioneers how to survive: "Grandmother praised the Indians. [She said] they wasn't any meaner than we was."
Elder Jensen also quoted a written recollection of Lewis Barney regarding a dispute that arose after Indian women were allowed to glean grain from Mormon fields after harvest. A few of them took grain standing in the shocks, and the farmers then withdrew permission. After one farmer drove some Indian women off his land, an indignant chief approached Brother Barney, and said, "This is our land and this is our water, our grass, our valleys, and this is our wheat. I will have this field and this wheat."
The chief then said he would kill Brother Barney and raised his rifle. Brother Barney caught hold of the barrel. After several minutes of scuffling, the chief gave up, eyed his adversary, and began to laugh. They agreed to be friends. Brother Barney told him to send the women into the fields and glean all they wanted and they would not be molested.
"This account clearly reveals the differing points of view of settlers and Indians," Elder Jensen remarked. "In the settlers' view, the land was not theirs and the Indians needed permission to go on it and enjoy its fruit. The Indian view was that the land had been and still was theirs and having given the settlers permission to plant crops, Indians should now rightfully share in the harvest." ...

"In think telling the rest of the story requires one to acknowledge that Indians made sincere and often heroic efforts to absorb the tide of Mormon emigrants and to peacefully and even symbiotically co-exist with them," he said. Yet eventually, relations deteriorated and were similar to those in other parts of the West, he said.
"Regardless of how one views the equities of Indian-Mormon relations in those times, the end result was that the land and cultural birthright Indians once possessed in the Great Basin were taken from them," he said. "As tragic as that is, history cannot be unlived. What we can do, the least we can do from a distance of 160 years is to acknowledge and appreciate the monumental loss this represents on the part of Utah's Indians. That loss and its 160-year aftermath are the rest of the story.
"We can also work until the rest of the story becomes an integral part of the story; until Wakara, Wanship, Washakie and Black Hawk have their appropriate place in Utah's history books as well as Brigham, Heber and Parley; until Utah's history includes Indian history and July 24th commemorates everyone's contribution to our state's unique past."

Hyrum's Choice for Independence Day

I showed Hyrum two videos on YouTube yesterday to get him in a patriotic mood. I told him one was the way we used to sing it (Kate Smith, "God Bless America") and the other was the way we sing it now (Lee Greenwood, "God Bless the USA"). His pick "bless America":  (be sure to watch for The Gipper)



Then we spent Sunday morning with Mormon Tabernacle Choir videos singing patriotic songs.

Hohensalzburg: the Castle

Perched on a hill overlooking Salzburg, the Fortress (Festung Hohensalzburg) High Salzburg guarded the area and the archbishops for hundreds of years. Each of the archbishops added to the defenses over time, making a very impressive, impregnable fortress. I'm not sure if it's really impregnable, but it was never impregnated.

The cable car up from the cathedral where the archbishop worked every day was significantly faster than the Untersbergbahn. The archbishops were driven there, either by horse carriage or else carried by retainers, so they didn't have to hoof the up and down of the hill every day. We only did it once and were quite winded.

We only intended to pop in, see the castle, and pop out again on our last day in Salzburg, but ended up staying for three hours. There was a LOT to see and do. They really did an excellent job with it.




The current chapel of the castle. We also toured the excavated site of the original chapel. Lots of rocks and some rough outlines where things used to be and the hint of a flavor of color that used to be discernible. This is more impressive.





The upstairs is lavishly painted, with coats of arms of nearby allies all over. Art as a sign of power.







I mean, even the doors upstairs are incredibly ornate! The downstairs ... not so much.








The Bull of Salzburg is the mechanical organ in the tower. It chimes the hours with music, including a very loud, long F that resounds at moments important for the working day (get to work!). It apparently sounds like a bull.





They had a display of old Austrian musical instruments, including the ever-popular Glockenspiel and this "Serpentine" horn.












Build your own Festung Hohensalzburg! Fun for the whole family. (Grown up child not included.)







As we said, fun for the whole family.









Joy says, "I loved the puppets."




Downstairs was a marionette museum. They do full-length, very professional movies of great classics. We considered buying Mozart's Magic Flute (right) for Hyrum, but realized it was over 40 bucks and thought better of it. On the left are some devils from the Wizard of Oz. "But if we ever come into our own, we could probably buy it online some day."




The view around the castle. There were literally dozens upon dozens of mosquitos flocking those of us brave enough to be at the top of the castle that day. I got 5 bites just taking this video. Please enjoy it.



They also had a WWI museum. I hadn't ever really studied WWI - focused more on the second war. And even then, my studies were on the Battle of the Bulge with France and England against Germany. The first war, though, was the one that broke up the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so it was pretty important for Austria.

Seeing it from an Austrian perspective was very interesting. It's not the version they'd tell you in the US, let's put it that way. This painting, for instance, is of the worshiping of the beloved Kaiser.


In addition to the displays of WWI memorabilia, they had a fascinating art display of medieval weapons and armor arranged as if they were a small army preparing to charge the unprepared tourist walking through the door. The lights and shadows on it were quite impressive. There was a movie display on the wall facing the army depicting Pythonesque actors fighting back.

The castle is a bit odd. Joy was just saying that she was confusing which castle was which. The reason is that most of the museum lets you wander wherever you like, but they have a guided tour through the part with the mosquitos and the organ and the torture chamber. There was a lot to see. Pack a lunch.

DC - A Policy Guy Wanders

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -- POTUS

As interesting as the economic landmarks were, I was much more interested in making a tour of the Presidents. I have no idea if Pres. Obama was 'at home' when I came calling, but it was very interesting to imagine him or one of the kids pulling back the curtains to look out at the small crowd of photographers, families, and protesters (below) standing vigil. I wondered how long it takes before the novelty of omnipresent amateur paparazzi wears off. Imagine looking out your windows every day and seeing a throng of people. Then I wondered what it would be like if the White House lawn was armed as well as the X-Mansion and decided I wasn't dignified enough to be sticking my camera through the bars and moved on.

"Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential." -- POTUS

Washington and the Distinctive Unit Insignia of the The Big Red One from near the FDIC and Red Cross HQ. Being a Cornellian, I'm rather fascinated by that nickname for the First Infantry Division, the oldest division of our army.

I marched across the green between the White House up to the Washington Monument and was amazed at the number of baseball games going on. Game after game of coed softball all over the parks! I paused once in a while to cheer on a batter or applaud a good outfield catch.

From Washington, you can see the Capitol Building (Congress, pictured right), the Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln and the WWII Memorial, and the White House. It is a fitting layout in tribute to our first president. There are so few people who have been put into such high office with so much humility, so much willingness to put it all down to return to a simpler life, and so many excellent first examples. John Adams, our second president, had apparently wanted to make the President serve a life term. Yet as Washington peacefully laid down the mantle, so Adams also turned them over in one of the world's first peaceful exchanges of power between political parties.
I gazed up from the foot of the monument. Yes, he stands that tall today. This is what he said:

• Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
• Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
• Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
• Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
• Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
  
• Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
• If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
  

Of similar bold assertions was our third President, Thomas Jefferson:

• A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
• Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
• Every generation needs a new revolution.

• Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
• Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
• He who knows best knows how little he knows.
  

Sauntering around Jefferson, I visited a remarkably flat memorial, that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President during the only economic crisis of the last 100 years worse than this one. I walked it backwards and spent much of it wondering where a statue of the man himself was. The walk consists of his more famous sayings carved into stone, with occasional reflecting pools and waterfalls or statues of Depression-era bread lines.
His dear wife, Eleanor, gets a statue of her own as our first delegate to the UN. Since she is rather less often quoted, here are some of hers:

• Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway.
• Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.
• Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
• In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

And so finally, after more than two hours of walking I came round to the lanky Illinoisan himself, whom I trust you will read with as deep a voice as you can manage:

• The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
• My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
• How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
• I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
• Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
• No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

What a debt of gratitude we owe to these men and their wives.

Renaissance Fair

(Joy’s comments as usual are in quotes. Derrill is not. We haven’t done a joint blog in a while, so we thought it would be good to remind you. “I’m usually in quotes because Derrill is usually the one typing.”)

“We have been looking forward to going to this fair since the first year I moved here and married Derrill. I found out about it and Derrill’s family has always enjoyed them in the past. We have just been taking turns going other places and this year was the fair.”

Sterling, NY (location of the Ren. Fair) is a back water place off of three broken trails. It took us a while to find the place despite google maps. “Gratefully Hyrum took a nap on the way up, that is what I call the best case scenario for us to enjoy the fair while we were there.” If you go looking for it go North on the 38 after the 104 until you see signs for it. “Their directions didn’t get us quite far enough”.

“After buying tickets you walk into a little village of buildings and what I saw first was a costume shop, so that you costume yourself. It was really fun to see so many people there already. It felt like we were joining something instead of creating something.” We had looked through the schedule of events for the day and decided contrary to stereotype that Derrill was most interested in hearing music and that Joy was most interested in seeing theatre. “These choices helped us a lot in prioritizing the possible events to attend.” There's a LOT there to do. You could easily come back for a second day.

“We started out (after a bathroom stop) at a Bagpipe and drum concert. Hyrum was really excited. Even before they started playing he would breakout clapping at what seemed to me random intervals.” Hy mentioned that they encouraged audience participation, which they defined as raucous cheering, rolling on the ground, throwing babies in the air, or something else I won’t mention in a family blog. “I’m sure we raised our eyebrows.” I obediently tossed Hyrum in the air at the end of every song. He loved it. As he’s gotten larger, the ceiling has been closer and closer, reducing Dada’s chances for babytossing. “Derrill also mentioned Hyrum has gotten more wiggly” and that reduces safety. We enjoyed them muchly.

Before lunch we tried out another couple acts, but we found them in poor taste. We later learned that the schedule provided a parental warning “which we hadn’t quite noticed” that warned of ‘Bawdy Baskets.’ We lucked out in not having chosen them, but we are good little Puritans and walked away.

They had an assortments of games that we didn’t play, but that looked fun: toss a cannonball into the cannon; really really long wooden slide; shooting crossbows at targets; archery; and the ubiquitous strong man competitions, dart throwing, etc. As several of our hopeful acts let us down, we had some time to amble through the shops instead. I tried on a very comfortable merchant’s shirt which I imagined buying someday when I’m a successful merchant. Joy tried on some floral, ribbony headwear whose name we can’t recall, also to be purchased when I’m a successful merchant.

We did get me a new Robin Hood hat, though. I’ve needed a Merry Men cap for quite some time. “They did have Maid Marian hats there too, but I didn’t try any on.” There was this fetching Byzantine number, though, that accented Joy nicely. “They looked like they’d last a bit longer, but I didn’t think they looked as pretty. Derrill started looking at hats while I was on the camel. We also got a wooden bird for Hyrum that you fill with water and it sings like a cardinal. That guy did a very effective sales pitch when he made my crying baby laugh." (It was quarter past nap time by that point.)

During lunch, I got to sit and chat with a fellow who performs as Will Shakespeare in a one man play (he's the fellow in gray there in the middle). It was a very nice conversation – what he does and why and how long. Comparing the different plays going on that day. Joy’s conversation with one of the behind-the-scenes folks was much odder. Joy had seen the Queen’s lady-in-waiting several times and had commented on her nice dress. “I, of course, didn’t even know she was the lady-in-waiting.” To me, it seemed like she really needed to spend 15 minutes in the shade with a bottle of water. She started this strange response about how nice clothing is, and how it feels, and that she has a lot of it. It was rather disjointed – she had to say something – “I bet they had to do that a lot.”

We did get Joy one good theater piece, though. They performed a shortened version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Wisely, they decided, instead of shortening the entire play to 45 minutes, to just pick out a short section that could be done well in 45 minutes which still gave the flavor of the entire play. Since I was in that play many long years ago, that was my #1 concern. “I liked it. At first I couldn’t hear very well, but we got to a spot where I could hear better. It went on well from there. Puck was pretty funny.” I thought Bottom did quite a good job.

We ended the evening with a lovely trio of medieval instrumentalists – they designed and handmade their own instruments! – who told us the stories behind the songs and showcased 3 different versions of the bagpipe. Who knew? Their music (Bells and Motley) was really what I came to hear. Sitting under the sun, in the shade, listening to floating, lilting, harps, bagpipes, fiddles, and much more unique instruments was rapturous. Joy's favorite instrument is featured in the video above: a hand cranked violin with a keyboard. "I loved the harp, too. That was just my favorite of the ones he made." The strangest instrument - featured in the lower video - was a one-string fiddle that has 4-5 other strings inside the case to reverberate and make the string instrument sound like a reed. Funky.

Actually, the ending piece was the joust. The sound system needed help, and the choreography was silly. “When they finally got to the joust, the couple of minutes of joust was fine. That’s probably why they did the silly choreography: they wanted it to last more than a couple minutes of joust.” They made all of 3 or 4 passes.

They fist-fighted a lot. “They could have done some elimination, you know.” Several people jumped off horseback WWF style. Crude humor was made. Hyrum loved the large crowd cheering. “I think he liked the horses too.” The louder the crowd got, the more boisterous he was. He also clapped for the gratuitous violence, as you can see here. (Note: You can hear Hy screaming in the background. I can't change the zoom on my camera once it's started filming, so I can't get Hy in better focus when I move to him. You can still see his excitement."

Joy loved the mile high, moist chocolate cake we bought on our way out. “That was the best food I ate all day long.” We picked up some CDs of the groups we listened to. They did an effective job parting us from our money.

An exquisite chess set in gold and silver (which we did not get).

Glad to be Alive

And here's one of the people to whom I owe that: Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov. The full story is here with a hat-tip to economist Brad DeLong who got it from someone else I don't know from tnsgrl64.
To summarize, in 1983 Petrov was filling an extra shift for someone else who couldn't show up at work ... watching over the BIG RED BUTTON for the Soviets. The computer announced that the US had launched a nuclear missile at Moscow. That didn't make strategic sense to him: why only one? He guessed that it was a computer error and, despite protocls that told him to fire first and inform his superiors after, held off.

Then a second, third, fourth, and even a fifth missile showed up. Realizing that it could potentially be millions of Russian lives on the line and knowing it would definitely be millions of American lives if he gave the orders to fire, he held his ground as the rest of the officers present said he had to fire.

Seconds turned into minutes and it became clear that he was right. It turned out to be a computer error from some funky sunspots and satellites. He saved the world.

Bureaucracy being what it is, he was first praised and then censured for his actions. The above link claims he was forcably retired; Wiki indicates he always claimed otherwise. His story apparently broke in 1998 and a documentary is expected later this year.

From Wiki: "Petrov has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did that day. In an interview for the documentary film The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World,^[5] Petrov says, "All that happened didn't matter to me — it was my job. I was simply doing my job, and I was the right person at the right time, that's all. My late wife for 10 years knew nothing about it. 'So what did you do?' she asked me. I did nothing.""

Wow. Another beautiful example of God putting the right person in the right place at the right time.