Slightly warmer. A couple of brave young shirtless guys, but the wind was very cold

Motherly Love--wind chill factor of 10 degrees F.

Ferocious north wind, 3rd day of this frigid weather.

1885--Why, it is almost as if American Indians were, well, Human

Maj. Sparks informs the society that Sitting Bull, the next biggest chief, is a remarkable man. His picture shows one of the strongest and saddest marked faces ever seen, and it almost bewilders one to look upon the face of a wild Indian, like Sitting Bull, and see such wonderful and plainly marked lines of strong character.

The Nashville Tennessean 9 December 1885

Morro Rock--N wind 35 MPH, WCF 12 degrees; wind at back both ways

When you have to walk backwards a mile you walk backwards a mile.

D. C. and MD Land that we probably should not have sold off

Those who should arrive after 1655 were promised 1,000 acres for every five men they transported to the colony, and the rent for it was fixed at 20 shillings a year, payable in the country's produce. Ships from the Old World continued to arrive with settlers for the manors and plantations of lower Maryland. In 1633 began the patents in the upper reaches of the Potomac and near the Falls. Before 1700, the whole area now covered by Washington was in the possession of its first land owners.
As Ninian Beall was responsible for about 200 immigrants coming to the country, when Prince Georges County was created out of Calvert County, over 7,000 acres of his property were found to be in the new county. On part of this acreage, the District of Columbia is now located, an on another part the famed "Dumbarton Oaks." His first tract of land was called "Rock of Dumbarton." This grant was received from Lord Baltimore and was for seven hundred and ninety five acres.
The area in Maryland now included in the District of Columbia, in those days before 1700 was called New Scotland Hundred, and was a part of Charles County. This county was created by Lord Baltimore in 1658. It was the property along the Potomac River from Wicomico "as high as the settlements extend." New Scotland Hundred extended from Oxon Branch (opposite Alexandria, Va.) to the falls of the Potomac. Charles Beall was the pressmaster of this county. The area included:
• "The Nock" - grant of 500 acres first warranted to Ninian Beall.
• "Meurs" - 500 acres first granted to Ninian Beall, originally named "Chance"
• "Barbadoe" - first laid out or surveyed by Ninian Beall, 250 acres
• "Inclosure" - patented on Oct. 2, 1687, 1503 acres surveyed for Ninian Beall and by him taken up in 1687, and which was a tract now part of the National Arboretum.
On the eastern side of the Anacostia River the land belonged to Col. Beall above the land of the Addisons. "Fife Enlarged," 1,050 acres, named for Fifeshire, Scotland, was deeded by Co. Beall so his son Capt. Charles Beall, who died in 1740.
In the western portion of the area later covered by the National Capital, early taken up by various grants, there was no opportunity for ownership by Col. Beall until the end of the 17th century. His interests had centered on the area, however, probably through his early trips to the Garrison at the Falls. Eventually, Col. Beall was successful in obtaining tracts on both sides of Rock Creek, "Rock of Dumbarton" on the western side of Rock Creek, and on the eastern side, nearly opposite "Rock of Dumbarton," his earlier tract, "Beall's Levels," 225 acres between Mr. Hutchison's land, and the tract called "Widow's Mite."

Rough Times--Camping with Grandpa Len Coker and his foster son Thresher Bill Yocum

"I well remember one of our hunting tours in the fall of 1831, Len Coker and I crossed the river and went out to the spring you speak of on the head of Yocum Creek on a few day’s camp hunt. Our bedding was composed of bearskins, sheltered by spreading deerhides on poles. Our fare seemed royal to us for it consisted of both fresh and dried venison, pone bread, bear meat and wild honey."

How people enjoy our Dunes!

Pleasant surprise this morning--pdf of my long Chronologie in the French MOBY-DICK

The final volume of the Northwestern-Newberry THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE--LAST OF 15 VOLUMES

1965-2018 The Hardback of the Final Volume of the Northwestern-Newberry THE WRITINGS OF HERMAN MELVILLE

Publishing date, 2017; date received by its editors, 2018

Cold February morning

Why anyone whose white ancestors came to what became the US in the 1600s is kin to everyone almost

If you have 131,072 15 great grandparents and their children had the usual 10 children and so on down a few generations, is it any wonder that Taylor Swift and Matt Damon show up as Pottenger cousins, 13 or 14 or whatever it is. I should not have been surprised yesterday to find that someone on Roots (Bill Hader--whom I had never heard of) is a cousin. Even without going across the Atlantic, your folks come early, you are kin to millions, and not just a few millions. And not just Southerners. My surprise is how many Northerners have Pennsylvania or Maryland ancestors in common with mine. Well, the Annapolis folks were too good to keep South.

I am thinking about Walker Gilmer; forget the Gilmores, he is probably one of the Maryland Walkers like me. I should have checked earlier.

Walker Gilmer--I waited too long to see if I could find him

GREENCASTLE BANNER GRAPHIC

Frank Walker Gilmer
Monday, February 5, 2018
Dr. Frank Walker Gilmer, the well-known professor, passed away on Jan. 22, 2018, after a long illness.
He and his wife, Peggy had been residents of Greencastle since 1963.

I failed in earlier attempts to check on Walker and Peggy. Today I tried again and found the obituary.

This is what I wrote in MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE (p. 24):
I planned to study for the qualifying exams in the fall of 1962 but in the spring Walker Gilmer importuned me one Friday to come out to Libertyville for the weekend to prep him for the exams by talking out answers to old essay questions and memorizing facts from his meticulously devised flash cards. Saturday evening I called Hayford and asked if I could take the exams with Walker on Monday. He shrugged off the sign-up rules and agreed. Ernest Samuels fumed but did not put up a fight about letting me take the exam, although when I answered Hayford's little throwaway Melville question humorously he observed that this was "no place for levity."

Too late to see if Walker saw it.

Dried Duck for Lunch Today

John Le Carré on Stephen Spender; then Robert Weir and meanderings on Fame

John Le Carré The Pigeon Tunnel I find much less endearing than Frederick Forsyth's The Outsider but sometimes downright charming. There's a page on Stephen Spender in 1991. "At eighty-two, he cut a fine figure: white-haired, leonine, vigorous, full of wit," and holding forth on the evanescence of fame. Spender told of a drive across the US when he filled up at an isolated gas station in Nevada. The owner took only credit cards, so as not to have cash on hand. The garage owner scrutinized Spender's credit card. Finally, he said, "Only Stephen Spender I ever head of is a poet," he objected, "And he's dead." Now, the idea that the garage owner had heard of Stephen Spender the poet is a powerful enough conceit, no matter that he gets the facts wrong. About that time, 1991, at the Whitney, I think, Spender was wheelingly about then confronted me to ask where an elevator was. I was, I should say, in a Bill Blass suit and as tall as Spender, though younger, and looked as good as I ever did. I looked good enough to be a little wicked and as I showed him the elevator I cried out, "Oh, what a noble brow. You must be a poet." I hoped against hope that he would tell of being accosted in the United States by someone who had thought he must be a poet, just by looking at his noble brow.

But then there is the Bob Weir story which I am thinking about because of the death of John Perry Barlow. It is about Weir's decision to telephone the man who was, it turned out, in fact his natural father, and whom he got to know well:

The detective gave Weir his father's phone number, but Weir did nothing with it for some time. Then he took a deep breath and dialed the number. He figured that he had about fifteen seconds before his father might hang up if he didn't come to the point, so he rehearsed several ways of introducing himself. "My name is Robert Weir," he eventually said, "and I live in Marin County, and I have some information that might be of interest to you. But first I have to ask you a few questions. Did you ever have anything to do with a woman named" – and he gave the name of his mother – "who lived in Tucson nearly fifty years ago?" His father said yes and then grew very quiet. "I don't know how many children you have," Weir went on, "but you might have one more than you thought you did." When his father finally heard the news, he said, "Give me a second here." Then he said, "The only Robert Weir I know of plays guitar with the Grateful Dead," and Weir said, "Well, that would be me."

Was there ever a better line than "The only Robert Weir I know of plays guitar with the Greatful Dead"?

Too calm for surfers, though there is one somewhere on extreme right

"Go Fly a Kite," someone told her.

The Back of HERMAN MELVILLE IN CONTEXT--what you get these days for $120

KEVIN J. HAYES, HERMAN MELVILLE IN CONTEXT

Kevin J. Hayes and Robert Madison in Landenberg, PA

Madison is enshrined in footnotes in the new Norton MOBY-DICK for his finding a source for what Melville says about the albatross. And has just published his new edition of Cheever's THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS, previewed in the Norton notes.

Yesterday came 4 copies of Kevin J. Hayes's HERMAN MELVILLE IN CONTEXT

Cambridge University Press is willing to pay in books. Amazon's Prime bargain price is $120 a head. Maybe Bob Sandberg will want one of my copies.

I cut off EDITED By KEVIN J. HAYES but I will make up for that in the next picture.

The obituaries for John Perry Barlow are stacking up on the Apple in the dining room. What a great man!

7 February 2018

John Perry Barlow—a man who could talk to anyone. Today the tech person looked on her Apple and watched the notices come in, fast, as news got around.
The New Yorker of 27 March 2017 (I saw a week early on the Internet) had a story about a lad named Evan who has things in his backpack no one should have to carry. One is the 1000 page, more or less, "Herman Melville, Volume I." This was fun for a few hours. (When the New Yorker came, and I got to check with Vittorio Lodato who had just arrived in Seattle for a book event and agreed that it was a hoot.) Then on that same 20 March 2017 my daughter drove home from San Francisco after her turn with the ailing John Perry Barlow during which he and I had talked on the phone about Gene Autry and Willie Nelson and American Morse and tying messages on the Y stick so you did not tear off the brakeman's arm, and the Internet. She turned on something called Podcast and Lodato came on reading "Herman Melville, Volume I." She was startled, but I had just told her about it, and she kept control of the Saab that used to live in Morro Bay. At least I got to tell John Perry Barlow about how the Internet had changed life for me during the last 15 years, after "Herman Melville, Volume II." He had no idea, of course, about the Internet. What a remarkable man! My daughter said today they have him dressed up as a cowboy for the funeral. Oh, his Wyoming days. And who else could I talk to about Gene Autry? And can you imagine a man who variously accomplished that the obituary notices don't all begin with "lyricist for the Grateful Dead." Someone here compares him to Jay Leyda, powerful in very different fields. He had a hard last few years, Barlow did. A great man. Now there is no one I will ever talk to about Gene Autry and Willie Nelson and American Morse and how you tie messages on the Y so the brakeman does not tear off his arm, and also the Internet. A great champion of freedom of the Internet, Barlow was.

OK, you jokers! Here it is 11:30 and what have you done with Morro Rock?

Doing sciatica exercises on the floor while (on the Parker side) my cousins Danson, Steenburgen, and Macy found their roots

Of course I had to check when I got up. You know this is not the only ways we are kin or connected. Sometimes starting with one or the other parent gets a different path. Anyhow, William H. Macy is my 14th cousin thrice removed on my father's side, through the McGehees, but on this continent, not MacGregors, and on to John Isaac of Sevington. Ted Danson goes through the Sparks, back in England, 13th cousin twice removed. Ah, I heard Mary Steenburgen say she had never heard of a Gaines but Skip said a rich Gaines woman had married the scoundrel whom George Washington had to get rid of in the French and Indian War. So Mary is my 14th cousin twice removed. Not the prettiest bunch of cousins, except for Mary. And I thought there would be a direct Arkansas connection.

Mississippi Cousins, what did James Alexander Bell say when a morning reminded him of Lookout Mountain?

I don't often hide things this well.
The Battle in the Clouds--what did he say after the war when the weather conditions reminded him of Lookout Mountain?
Thanks!

In the mail, Sir Walter Scott's ROB ROY--a MacGregor Cousin of Mine

How pleasant to have a family legend, wished for by envious folk, turn out to be true. Our Magruder cousins told themselves that they were MacGregors, the long-outlawed breed, but comes DNA and says they are not. So the McGehees told themselves that their first American ancestor was a MacGregor, at the time that the Kings of England (and Scotland) were determined to obliterate the name of MacGregor and as many living MacGregors as possible. Ho ho, I thought, people will believe anything that makes them feel good. Wrong! Comes DNA and the story tellers are vindicated. We are MacGregors, even unto Gregor of the Golden Bridles and beyond. And Rob Roy, whom I have never read about and whom I have never seen portrayed in a movie, is a 6th cousin, a few times removed. Time to read ROB ROY.

A Twist on Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon--Actual kinship to Kevin and Kyra

On the floor today I watched Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey discover their ancestries. They identify as Swedish and (mainly Jewish) and as Jewish. I of course had to check and find that Maggie and Jake are 14th cousins from me, once removed, by way of the Isaacs, and,thanks to his one Pennsylvania Dutch ancestor Tobias Schucher, Robert Downey Jr and I are connected, not blood kin, through a great array of Germans including Costners and Rudisills. Then I went on the Henry Louis Gates Jr himself and got a connection that starts with 2nd cousin 10 times removed. I had seen the Cory Booker show before and wanted, oh wanted to be kin to that dastardly doctor in Louisiana, but got no path to Cory. For John Lewis I got a wonderfully complex set of connections starting with my fifth great uncle's uncle wife's . . . . I looked at other names and saw Wanda Sykes. I don't know who she is but we are connected. I am happy that the handsome boy John Legend is an actual cousin by way of the Isaacs, so he is kin to the Gyllenhaals. What a good looking bunch to be cousins.
Now, I had to try the degrees of actual genetic relationship between me and Kevin Bacon (13th cousin, once removed) and his wife Kyra Sedgwick (same thing, but independent of his, 13th cousin, once removed). ]
This leaves out the Cherokees and Choctaws but it is fun to play with the white and Hispanic and black kids too.
What it means is that if any white ancestors came over to Massachusetts or Virginia in the 1600s you are probably kin to millions of Americans. Even if your known white ancestors came over to Philadelphia and points south (New Castle, Baltimore, Annapolis, Jamestown, Charleston) you will be kin to a slew of Northerners because not all kin folks went to the same colonies and northerners interbred with people from the middle states like Maryland. How did I get to be a cousin to Paul Revere? Well, now I know. As Lois says, in the South if you are not kin you are connected. But expand that. If a bunch of your folks came in the 1600s you are kin, usually remotely, to everyone, the way I am kin to most of the men who died at the Alamo, not just to my Pottenger cousin Jim Bowie and my remoter cousins Travis and Crockett.
It all makes you see things more broadly.

Sciatica exercises, beach walk, and weekly baking

Surfers spread out all along the beach, even in the middle

Offshore wind sand blasting us. Wore swimming goggles, as Los Osos Tom did

Over 80--Global Warming is Here

8:30 but wind already up. Dick strong as ever; Jan and Tom running gloriously; Frank missing for a while