Blank Fields II

Veterans Day Parade, Detroit

2008-11-10T16:02:00.004-05:00

Some of the boys from the 21st... with some other units from the state. A Sergeant from the real Army... and front and center, His Honor, the Mayor of Detroit, Ken Cockrel.

"Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees..."

2008-10-24T06:29:00.003-04:00

... after we whoop them Rebs, of course!

This great picture provided with the courtesy and kindness of Gracie Ackerman of the 4th Michigan.

Skirmish Wolcott Mill

2008-10-21T12:02:00.007-04:00

These great images are through the courtesy of Kristina Scarcelli... the great great granddaughter of Abner Austin who served in the Civil War and was wounded at Gettysburg... Thank you!

This event, north of Detroit, MI... was the Last Final Measure for the Civil War reenacting season. And it was a terrific end to an especially wondrous year!

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Civil War Event (Fremont, OH)

2008-10-09T09:15:00.010-04:00

Angola, Indiana Reenactment...

2008-10-01T06:39:00.005-04:00

John J. Clark

2008-09-26T12:48:00.001-04:00

My wife's great great grandfather, John J. Clark... seated on the right... while the QMSgt. with the 6th Illinois Cavalry, during the Civil War.

Pierce Creek Civil War Reenactment

2008-09-19T13:39:00.001-04:00

More Pet Pics

2008-09-19T06:11:00.004-04:00

More Civil War Cousins...

2008-09-19T06:11:00.000-04:00

Broome County Civil War Monument, Binghamton, NY

2008-09-09T11:07:00.002-04:00

I can remember seeing this monument, in front of the courthouse downtown, frequently, when I was growing up. I would well imagine that it helped make me a Civil War Nut (and reenactor)!

James M. Warner

2008-09-09T10:44:00.005-04:00

Recently I became a member of the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW). James M. Warner, my great great grandfather, had served in the war and I joined the SUVCW through him. I've found some interesting stuff about the guy, mostly from his CW pension applications. I'll post some of that at a later date...

My cousin, Scott Payne (also a Civil War reenactor and genealogy buff) took these pictures (which I've sort of stolen from him from the "find a grave" website).

If you want to find my grave, I will be (hopefully no time soon) be buried immediately behind him - Jim Warner, not Cousin Scott).

"Oh, Lord, this is the Jackson event - I beseech Thee... no rain this year, 'kay?"

2008-08-27T11:58:00.004-04:00

Maybe I should have prayed for cooler weather along with the request for drier weather. Historically, it always rains at the Jackson (MI) Civil War Muster - one of the biggest of the year in this part of the Mid-West. "If it's raining, it must be Jackson!"

It was dry for the most part (it rained a bit during the nighttime). But Saturday had to have been the hottest day of the year (and humid like you wouldn't believe)!

A True Son of a Union Veteran of the Civil War

2008-08-13T21:49:00.005-04:00

A goodly number of Civil War reenactors are genealogy nuts as well... and of them quite a few are members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW)... by proof of lineage. In fact I am proudly joining the Austin Blair Camp (No. 7) of Jackson, MI in a little more than a week, at the Jackson Civil War Muster - through my great great grandfather, James M. Warner (a private and articifer in the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery, Co. A).

After the War, Union Veterans formed the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) - and was the literal forebearers of the SUVCW.

Here however, is a picture of a true son of a Union Civil War veteran. Taken recently at a Civil War reenactment at Charlton Park in Hastings, MI. The fellow on the right, a reenactor and good guy, Keith Harrison, only looks like he should himself be a veteran of the War.

But the father of the gentleman on the right (and I need to find his name - mea culpa) actually fought in the Civil War. Quite a few years later, he, late in life, fathered this sharp and remarkable gentleman. He recalls as a small boy sitting on his father's lap on the porch hearing firsthand stories about the War. There are few true sons of a Union Veterans. I believe the Austin Blair Camp had one who passed away a few years ago. And the number grows smaller every day.

Interestingly, there are yet a number surviving - living - widows of Civil War veterans!

The last Civil War veteran, Albert Woolson, died in 1956 at the ripe old age of 109 years!

Senator Howard

2008-08-13T21:27:00.007-04:00

Fellow living historian, Dave Tennies, portrays Civil War era US Senator Jacob ("Honest Jake") Howard of Michigan. Howard is credited with working closely with Abraham Lincoln in drafting and passing the US Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery.

Dave does a wonderful presentation of Senator Howard. His love of Civil War (indeed American) history is well evident, as is his deep study of the good Senator.

Note that no politician today are called "Honest"... hmmmm...

Dueling Cousins

2008-08-13T20:28:00.004-04:00

I really, really like this picture of cousin Scott Payne and I hamming it up for the camera.

And even more so sepia-toned.

A quick story about another cousin, Glenn Payne, that has no place in this post... but it really deserves being told.

He went to the drug store recently and told the pharmacist that he was there to get a prescription for Payne.

The pharmacist said, "Alright. Name?"

Glenn reminded him it was for Payne.

"I realize that... but who is it for?"

"Payne!"

They went back and forth a bit more before both Glenn and the pharmacist realized they were doing a modern variation of "Who's on first".

A '57 MG in a '59 MG

2008-08-13T18:56:00.004-04:00

During the aforementioned trip to Upstate New York, one thing I really wanted to do... photographically, that is... was to get a picture of me in my Uncle Neil Payne's classic MG-A.

It is two years younger than I am... but it runs better and the body is in better shape.

When his brother, my Uncle Warner, died almost ten years ago, he was in the middle of restoring it. Both he and Warner have had several MGs over the years... and so Uncle Neil happily and deftly picked up where Warner had left off.

The bottom photograph... is of me in the spring of 1960 with another MG-A (Uncle Warner's). I am still a 1957 model. But can only guess (and would likely be wrong) what year this MG is. But as I recall, it was blue as well.

Scott Payne, my Rebel cousin from earlier blogs, is Warner's youngest son.

It was Neil's son - and my cousin - Glenn, took me for a wonderful ride in it on the winding roads and rolling hills of rural Broome County. It took little or no arm twisting.

Not a CD-ROM, but a CdV

2008-08-13T12:47:00.004-04:00

This is one of my favorite likenesses. Even if it is one of my ugly mug. Almost looks like a CdV. During the Civil War, photographs were printed and pasted to cards about the size of a credit card. "Cartes de Visites"... calling cards with images. Inexpensive and easy to mail or keep in an album... carry around in your haversack. Very popular.

Unless, of course, you had one with my ugly mug on it. Then you put it in the barn to scare away rats.

More "Family Reunion" Activies...

2008-08-13T09:22:00.002-04:00

Great Scott! What a Payne!

Cousin Scott Payne (and fellow reenactor - albeit in Confederate gray) and I hamming it up further for the camera at the Pierce Creek Civil War reenacting event in Binghamton, NY, this past weekend. Scott portrays the Gray Ghost - Col. John Singleton Mosby.

"My cousin? Not in THAT uniform, you're not!"

2008-08-12T19:37:00.006-04:00

This past weekend I went to my old hometown in Upstate New York. Mostly to see family. But not without coincidence, there was a Civil War reenactment event there too. I will be posting more pics later, but this is one of my favorites.

I hadn't seen many of my family for quite a few years - sadly, not since the last couple of funerals. But I had heard, through the grapevine, that my cousin, Scott Payne was a Civil War reenactor as well - and would likely be at this event. I hadn't seen Scott for almost 25 years.

On Saturday, I was looking at the sutler's wares, when I was tapped on the shoulder by a Confederate officer.

"Are you from Michigan?," he asked. I assured him that yes, I was.

And so then, this Rebel says, "I am your cousin... Scott!"

Without missing a beat, I replied, "Not in that uniform, you're not!"

And so we spend the rest of the day having a family reunion - replete with such photographs as the above.

But like I said, more later!

Port Hope at the Tip of the Thumb of Michigan

2008-08-04T21:13:00.008-04:00

A few weeks ago, I went to a terrific, terrific Civil War Reenacting event at one of the lighthouses on the shores of Lake Huron... specifically Pt. Aux Barques, near Port Hope, Michigan. I will try to post more pictures as time goes by... along with the Upstate New York event... but wanted quickly to post these few.

The "hat club" grows! These "smoking caps" (or "lounging caps") are quite the fashion statement for the elegant and discerning Civil War soldier. Photographic evidence proves of their existence at that time... and now even more so! Usually when our kepis, forage caps or slouch hates are doffed once back in camp, out comes the smoking caps (if nothing else, then to try to tame a tangled mess of sweating battle-head)... although on Sunday, several of us (posed here) fought the Confederates so topped. We won! Coincidence? I think not.

You will notice that some of Yankees here look like they also have on their red jammies. Those are the dapper Zouaves. For more info (so I don't have to type more than I have to) check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zouave

While technically, their fezzes are not smoking caps, we all were in agreement that because of their bravery - and individuality - in their choice of uniform styles, they should be de facto members of the hat club. The Confederates... ever the rebels... had but only one of their large number who had the sense and decency to own/wear a smoking cap. I invited him to join us for the picture... but couldn't be found when the time came. Later I found him and so I include him here separately. But know he is our brother. The hat club transcends the Mason-Dixon line.

The bottom picture is just some of us hamming it for the camera... Civil War reenactors tend to be far from camera shy - if not out and out hams. And we do so have a good time.

Detroit, Michigan

2008-07-07T19:37:00.007-04:00

A couple random and random pictures of the Motor City.

The city skyline was taken from Windsor, Canada... and yes, it really is south of Detroit.

Monuments

2008-07-07T19:07:00.006-04:00

Recently, I attended my wife's family's reunion in northwestern Pennsylvania. It had been quite a while since I've attended, so I really thought it best I look for no excuse and tag along on this one. To be perfectly candid, I was happily surprised that I had such a wonderful time.

My wife's brother pastors the two Catholic churches there, in Corry, near Erie… a small town of perhaps 6,800. I took a walk Sunday through 'downtown' armed with my ever present camera. As usual, I found several interesting things to take pictures of, not the least of which was the obligatory town square Civil War monument. Another monument that I took pictures of was erected for several volunteer firemen who had been killed in a fire almost forty years ago in Corry. There are four different memorials, I am told, in town. One at each of the two firehouses, one in the town square not far from the Civil War monument and then a beautiful one I'm assuming at the site of the fire. It reads:

In Appreciation and Recognition

of Their Supreme Sacrifice

David Apps

Richard Brigham

Jon Miller

Dennis Rockafellow

Lauren Shreve

The internet can be a wonderful thing and I learned much from it. And was touched much by it. The fire was the evening of Easter Sunday, March 29, 1970 at a Sherwin-Williams Paint store, in the "business district". It was supposed to have been a simple and "ordinary" fire. But apparently the fire - of undetermined cause - had been burning undetected in a partition for a quite a while, long before these volunteer fireman arrived. The 80 year old, long narrow 2-story building, tucked between an office building and a vacant building, was made of brick and timber and shared walls with the adjacent buildings. It had a false ceiling and it is suspected that hot fire gases collected there, and, along with the flammable paint and thinner and/or the linseed oil fumes given off from the burning linoleum floors, it all made for a deadly combination. Fifteen minutes after the volunteer firemen arrive, the building exploded, blowing out both the front and back walls.

Six firefighters were trapped in the rear, under debris, in the alley way. Five were able to free themselves. The sixth, the fire chief's son, was killed. The toll on the street side was much worse. Over a dozen firefighters were injured; many spectators were rushed to the hospital with injuries from flying glass. Firefighters and spectators fortunately were able to free several trapped victims. But unfortunately four additional young volunteer firemen were crushed to death under the wall.

I don't know these men, or their families. I am not from Corry. But I am compelled to imagine what that horrific night - a holy holiday - must have been like in that small community. Or what the coming days, months and years must have been like. What is today like for many? What is it must be like for those who remember. I can't help to think of the friends and families… especially and poignantly, the fire chief father… what they all must have felt, and numbingly didn't feel, for days, months or years. The parents of these five young volunteer firefighters must be quite old, I would think, if still alive. Wives would have remarried, girlfriends having moved on, never forgetting these lovers. Young children now grown and perhaps grandparents now, never remembering well these fathers. Faded memories at best for some. Painful memories at worse for others. Imagine being the surviving volunteer firemen, for a moment, and being call to the next fire. I've seen several pictures of the unveiling of the monument… with those firemen, wives, children, family and community all present. I cannot fully imagine what that day was like. The emotions. The sky was gray and I am sure hearts were as well.

As you drive through small town America, in addition to the more obvious cemeteries, there are many, many monuments in city parks and town squares. Almost all are driven by unseen. Many, I am sure, are seen so frequently by the residents that they are unseen as well. That grieves me. That anyone could be forgotten in a few years. And, sadly, it doesn't have to be generations. I have seen idiot tourists posing for pictures with dopey grins and rabbit ears at Ground Zero in NYC.

I am certainly not a military historian, neither am I any kind of a social historian of the Civil War era. Many put me to shame. I can't pretend. But I am both a Civil War Nut and a Genealogy Nut. And two things about reenacting I seem gravitate to is finding and savoring those moments where we could almost have traveled back to 1863 for a few seconds (maybe, just maybe, we have). The other is appreciating and recognizing that the people we reenactors portray and emulate and research were real, flesh and blood people. No different, really, than you or I today. We someday all will be but gradually fading memories as well. Do we "know" those we depict? What do we "do" with that knowledge? Do we appreciate and recognize?

Corry was established in 1861, I am told, although it had been settled for longer. The Civil War began soon thereafter and many residents left to fight. Fewer, I am sure, returned. Thus the monument in the town square. I cannot read the inscription in the photograph I took. But I imagine it is no different than any other Civil War monument's. And for me it is unnecessary. The statute of the solider, with his musket, wearing his kepi and great coat, brings to our minds quickly the men and the sacrifice - theirs and the people left at home. Reenactors understand. Nothing needs to be read. Or said.

Again, I can't read when it was erected, but would assume that many present that day knew those whom it was set there to honor. Some veterans, wives, children, family, friends and community. Imagine the emotions that day.

Forgive me if I offend and if I am incorrect. While my wife's family is Catholic, and a brother a priest, I was only one for a year and a half (Catholic, not a priest). So I might be off a bit here… or perhaps… I might be ineloquent at best. While at the reunion, we slept in the rectory, attached to one of the churches. It was pretty much impossible to forget where we were. There were constant reminders of my brother-in-law's faith and vocation. The Pope watched us sleep from his framed picture above the dresser. Several other Holy pictures were peppered in each room. Catholicism is identifiable to Protestants as having armies of statues (Jesus, his mom and step-dad along with Saints galore in every nook and cranny), the "Stations of the Cross" and Christ "still" on the Cross in every shape and size. And some would incorrectly assume that they are prayed to… even adored. But they are more reminders than anything else. Monuments if you would. We are a both a forgetful and easily distracted race. We need to have helps to recall and to focus. To appreciate and recognize. So we erect monuments and statues and headstones. Places like Gettysburg are filled with each. And truly, and ultimately, this is why reenactors reenact - military and civilians both - to appreciate and recognize. We are living historians and living monuments.

"There's Got to be a Mourning After..."

2008-06-29T20:58:00.012-04:00

I officiated, once more, at a funeral, just this past weekend. Sadly, it was a necessary "closed casket" affair. I've had a few of those in the past.

In this case it was because, the deceased - a farmer from near Waterloo, Michigan, Johannes Ruehle, who was just 59 - had died shortly after being kicked, squarely in the face, by a horse.

The coffin was plain and visitation but for a few hurried hours in his home. The burial in the family plot in the field behind the farmhouse.

Mr. Ruehle's internment had some practical urgency. The body had not been embalmed and the summer weather had been quite warm.

He died on June 26.

In 1863.

This was another, yet heretofore untapped, part of my reenacting impression of a Civil War Yankee chaplain - and minister. It was a elaborate feature of the Waterloo Farm Museum's full weekend of exhibits and demonstrations - along with an encampment of both Union and Confederate soldiers, working blacksmiths and so much more from farm life of the early 1860s. The farm looks like time hadn't touched it in a 150 years. What a jewel for those who love history!

The Michigan Soldiers Aid Society are a wonderful group of women and men civilian reenactors of the Civil War era, and it was their efforts, along with the Farm Museum, to put on the very educational, if a bit unsettling, "Mourning on the Farm" portrayal. We in the 21st century tend to try to keep a long arm's length from death. But a century and a half ago, death was a frequent and incessant visitor to most families and communities. And with the war, all the more so. Most children died as infants, women in childbirth, and all from a myriad of, now treatable, diseases and injuries.

A Victorian wife would have mourned the death of a husband or child or parent for a year... with an option for additional time... even for ever (consider Queen Victoria with her Prince Albert - in the can), and would slowly come out of mourning in ordered steps to a normal life. A husband, who lost a wife, if need be (i.e. to secure a new mommy for young children asap), would be allowed to remarry before his year was up... but the new wife would have to dress in total black and mourn the first wife for the balance of the 12 months.

I'm guessing that must have cast a bit of a cooling shadow on the old honeymoon.

The social etiquette for mourning was elaborate. And I won't pretend to be an expert from a weekend. But, through a mourning fashion show, the ladies of the MSAS showed wonderfully the stages of mourning. Further, the coffin laid out in the home's parlor (the forerunner of the funeral parlor), the black wreath on the door, the covered mirrors, stopped clocks and all, truly gave a wonderful lesson of the mourning practices of the day.

A few tidbits I didn't know before the weekend: the deceased, unless a closed coffin was the order of the day like Johannes, would lay right on the table, in the open... sans coffin. Again, I am thinking a little creepy to think that his dead and albeit clothed backside had laid literally right about where you were having breakfast the very next day. Also, before coffins became common place, the body would lay on a cloth... and six men would carry the body on the cloth then to the grave and lower it into the ground. With one at each of the four corners, and one on either side, in the middle, these men would bear the body holding the cloth. This cloth would then wrap the body and was known as the "pall".

And the men as the "pall bearers".

Pretty neat piece of trivia.

One other thing I learned, that is creepy in my book - and I would hope yours as well, is that the practice of "sitting" with the body until the funeral... dealt less with comfort and condolences... than it dealt with the very real need to shoo away gnawing rodents and other varmits until they could get the guy under the hidden protection of six feet of sod.

I've done enough funerals in my day, that this felt very much like it was real (despite the empty coffin). And with the setting, and the many people in Civil War era clothes, I felt as if I had been transported back to 1863.

Most of the above pictures need little explaining, perhaps. But, the gentlemen, gathered around me in front of the porch and then the one sitting with me in the parlor, Ken Giorlando (passionforthepast.blogspot.com), are the aforementioned pall bearers.

The final time at the grave, Sunday, while I read the very familiar, and always comforting, 23rd Psalm, the grieving pall bearers stood quietly, yet shakily, behind me. Later I was told, when I got to "Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me...", the rotund gentleman (who had campaigned earlier for the Senate) took the flask hidden in his walking stick and shared its contents with the others.

If they were Confederates, I would assume it was Southern Comfort.

But either way, I doubt the Psalmist had the comfort from a politician's walking stick in mind when he wrote of the rod and the staff.

www.waterloofarmmuseum.org

www.msas1860.org

Meat and cheese tray, Billy Yank?"

2008-06-08T08:32:00.011-04:00

"Don't mind if I do, Johnny Reb."

Yesterday was a(nother) terrific Civil War event at the Historic Fort Wayne in Detroit. I will post many more pictures and go into detail about the event later.

But I wanted to be sure to post this picture of two adversaries caught during a brief respite in the day's battle, enjoying delicious hors d'oeuvres together.

Hey, we might be portraying a war here. But, by golly, it's a civil war!

"Brain-storming, habit-forming, battle-warning weary winsome actor...

2008-06-07T05:56:00.003-04:00

...spewing spineless chilling lines--"

You might well assume that I am here, portraying well a chaplain, tired of mind, body and spirit... deep in contemplative and meditative prayer... while heavily burdened by his ministerial duties and charges... who is pausing momentarily before returning to the Hell of the Civil War battlefield.

But you'd be wrong.

I'm just waiting for my food to come at the Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village.

Darned if I'm don't look like some tired old fart. Sometimes I scare myself in the bathroom mirror. I think some grumpy curmudgeon has snuck up behind me...

The Family at Greenfield Village

2008-06-05T05:50:00.003-04:00

Reading letters from home to the boys...

2008-06-05T05:18:00.001-04:00

Don and Ron

2008-06-02T11:34:00.002-04:00

Good buddy and adopted (adapted?) brother, Ron is pictured here... on right... with his big brother, Don. I love this picture (glommed from Ron's blog -rondeere.blogspot.com). Ron and Don have an enviable close relationship. I can identify with there relationship about as much as I can with an astronaut's walk on the surface of the moon or a movie star receiving an Oscar. I've heard about such things. Even have seen pictures. But that is about as close as I've ever gotten.

Well. I lie.

I've adopted (adapted?) guys like Ron here and a veritable boatload of others as my brother - including my own Unca Neil - so, truth be told, I've made out like a bandit in the category of close brothers...

The 21st Michigan Infantry in part

2008-06-02T11:22:00.003-04:00

This likeness was taken last year at Eastpointe, MI. It shows a bit better of the scope of our unit. Again, not everyone is here... and we have new members now... both military and civilians... if we could all make it at the same time at the same event, it would be an awesome picture!

Greenfield Village's Civil War Remembrance Days

2008-05-30T21:13:00.012-04:00

Here are a few more pictures, as promised, of last weekend's event at Greenfield Village, in no particular order. A handful from the event's Civil War Ball... daughter Corrie in the purple ball gown... daughter Chaela in the blue. My wife/their mom made them (the ball gowns... we went halfsies on making the kids - a team effort)... as well as her own and all their - the three of them - multiple CW dresses as well).

The group shot of a bunch of sharp looking guys in blue is only a small part of the military contingent of the 21st Michigan Volunteer Infantry that was in attendance. We have some forty military total in the 21st... and a goodly number of civilians (men, woman and children) as well.

There's our family portrait will someday be here too... In the mean time here is a neat picture (well, considering the subject matter) taken of me by a nice, young Reb friend - Ian... another of me reading a letter from home to its unlearned recipient... I will post that one later and more in the future as time allows.

Check out fellow 21st-er and good friend Ken's blog - http://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2008/05/decoration-day-at-greenfield-village.html

In his latest posting, he quotes a local paper's coverage of the Greenfield Village event...

"More interactive than a book and more accurate than many movies, reenactments allow visitors to not just glimpse history, but to step back and experience a moment in time."

"Uncle Mike, I'd like to have your permission to date your daughter..."

2008-05-29T19:27:00.006-04:00

Usually a father would not be pleased to hear such a request asked of him. I could defend my positive response by saying that, well, Nic's mom is only my half-sister.

If you frequent Blank Fields at all, you will recall that I refer to our reeancting unit (the 21st Michigan Volunteer Infantry) as family. And if you know me at all, you also will recall that I don't have a sister. Half or otherwise. Just a lone brother whom I've not seen in six years.

Karen and I and the girls are quite close to Nic's family. We've known the large family since we've joined the unit... only just meeting the eldest son, Nic, this season. The younger ones having called Karen and I "Aunt" and "Uncle" for most of that time. Their mom is my "baby sister" and I am her "big brother". It seems right and true no matter the century.

And since the little ones call me "Unca Mike", it seemed like a good idea to come up with a story... for the public... especially since I am a "Methodist" chaplain and they are good and quite devoted "Papists" (don't be offended... I realize that the term is disparaging and a slur to Catholics... but it was one used sadly used by Protestants in days of old. And besides, my "sister" uses it to tease me. And furthermore, I had once been Catholic myself ( for a whole a year and a half - I guess it didn't take)... as was my bride for almost the first thirty-years of her life... we were married in the Catholic Church... by her brother-the-priest.

So, anyway, our "story" is that Father (remember this is in the early 1800s now), a Protestant, remarried after Mother died of the diphtheria, to a Romish woman (another politically incorrect and offensive not-so-nice name) . They had my baby sister who was then, of course, raised Catholic. The aforementioned doctor in our unit is her half-brother as well. Her mother's child from her previous marriage. I think.

While we cannot re-write the history of the Civil War, we can certainly be creative in writing our own history.

On that note, this past weekend, at Greenfield Village, whilst I was running about taking care of the wounded and dying on the battlefield, I failed - during one skirmish - to note that my "sister's husband" was lying close by in need of some spiritual help (be it apostate Protestant or not) and some physical aid. Later, while in rank and file, he berated me. Some brother-in-law I was, leaving him there to die.

"Hmmph." I told him, "I never thought you were good enough for my sister. It was about time someone shot you."

In the next skirmish, I took pains to attend to him when he took a hit. Face down and not-long-for-this-world, I knelt and just loud enough for him alone to hear, while "praying" for him... my hand on his back... said to him, "Argh. You stupid bum! Look what you went and did! How am I going to explain this to my sister!?"

"You'll make something up. You always do. And, oh, sorry about all that money I stole from you playing cards the other night..."

"Oh, that's okay, " I told him. "I stole more from you playing the night before!"

"Remember that dumb fight we had at the last family reunion? Well, I still think I was right...." And with that he died...

Above, is a likeness of my youngest daughter Chaela and Nic at the Civil War Ball that weekend. And beneath it the two of them with escort Randall.

On his two feet here.

Great kids all.

"My, you've grown a foot since I saw you last!"

2008-05-29T18:02:00.005-04:00

This past weekend was the 3-day Civil War Remembrance event at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI... a part of the impressive Henry Ford Museum complex. It is a grand kick-off of the reenacting season each year in Southeast Michigan. This has to have been one of the nicest events and best time we've had since moving to to the Greater Metro-Detroit area.

And we have had many and most have been awesome!

This tops them all!

Any event for reenactors is more than just an opportunity to throw on some odd clothes and pretend. It is quite literally a family reunion... and a chance to see folks you might not have seen since the last reenactment - or for a few. Not every unit makes every event. And even in our own unit, the responsibilities of modern day life and of non-reenacting family doesn't always allow each of us to attend everything on our calendar.

And it is always an chance to meet new friends yet un-met. Above is one such new friend... a terrific young man. I am good, good friends with his dad... but until this weekend I hadn't met Randall. He came along to try out reenacting and to get his feet wet in the hobby.

Or should I say, foot.

As an eight-year old, Randall had the unfortunate encounter with a rider mower. Kids are a resilient lot and Randall I gather adapted especially well in the aftermath. He walks with far more grace and confidence than I ever have. No one would ever suspect he wears a prosthetic foot. Except for when he faces north and the twists the thing to face south. With that knowledge of his comfort and good humor I asked him for a favor. Reenactors generally are a overly healthy bunch. Whole of limb and wide of girth. And more than a tad older than the young real-life Civil War soldier. Sooooo.....

We have a doctor in our unit (real doctor in real life, Civil War doctor in Civil War life)... and Doc sets up a forward field hospital tent at events. I told him about Randall... and then introduced them.

The above photograph is the result. Doc had him bandage himself up... apply a modicum of blood (not to push the gruesome envelope too far) and lay there on the stretcher. Doc gave him a liberal dose of laudanum for the pain (okay, it was vanilla extract)... It allowed Doc to explain better about the great numbers of amputations during the war and of much else.

The public was much impressed. Certainly they first thought that Randall had tucked his leg behind him or that there was a hole cut in the stretcher. But as he moved around and sat up, they realized the young fellow was authentic!

I wish, however, I could have seen the faces of those who later recognized him walking happily on two feet through Greenfield Village!

General Sterling

2008-05-19T21:15:00.006-04:00

In John Wayne's "True Grit", Wayne's Marshall Rooster Cogburn - a Confederate Civil War veteran - had a cat, you might recall, by the name of General Sterling Price. The historical original - and two-legged - General Sterling Price was an impressive and stubborn Rebel. Rather than surrender at the end of the war, Price took what was left of his army and went to Mexico... and became leader of a Confederate exile colony there in the state of Veracruz.

Up until recently, I never knew anyone, beside the aforementioned cat, who was named "Sterling"... him and, when I was a kid, British race car driver Stirling Moss. Sterling means "high quality". Or "impressive".

And the young gentleman standing here with me in the above image, is just that, impressive. A genuine and most likable Civil War enthusiast, I meet Sterling last fall at an event... and now this year, he and his family have joined with the 21st. A sharp, sharp kid. And I envy him. I saw my first reenactment back in the mid-1960s... would that I had started reenacting myself shortly thereafter. I can only imagine what sights, sites, sounds and smells I would have memories of today... if I had been in this grand hobby since I was Sterling's age. I envy all our unit's kids and teens early start in reenacting. Great kids all.

Imagine where it will take Sterling in the next forty years! General Sterling, no doubt! But Union, of course!

"The Marines have landed and have the situation well in hand."

2008-05-19T18:44:00.005-04:00

Recently, a couple of us from the 21st Michigan (21stmichigan.org) joined with the boys from the 4th Michigan (4thmichigancompanya.com) for the weekend... to fight the Rebs yet again, of course... and we had the very great honor to do so along side the Marines (ussmichiganmarineguard.org) . Here are a handful of images, including a well pleased, lone, sailor. There were some casualties, as you can see, but the Confederates finally skedaddled and surrendered...

"Ursine happening at the zoo..."

2008-05-16T18:23:00.005-04:00

These bears - on a recent trip to the Detroit Zoo - seem to be living the life of Riley, don't you think? Not to say that they bear resemblance to Jackie Gleason or William Bendix.

Orson Welles maybe.

"She's Got Marty Feldman Eyes"

2008-05-15T18:44:00.004-04:00

A couple more droppings from art school sketchbooks. The late, great Marty Feldman... from "Young Frankenstein" and "The Last Remake of Beau Geste".

"The Sunshine Goys"

2008-05-15T18:07:00.003-04:00

A much treasured possession. Art school pal Will Finn did this frighteningly prophetic drawing of he and I (lower right - he, upper left - I)... not long after he arrived at Disney's Studios. This is of us sometime in our future, as a couple of down-on-our-luck cartoonists cluttering the gutter in Market Square. Note that I am polishing off yet another fifth of Coca-Cola and he is sleeping off a bummed bottle of Higgins Ink.

Just so I don't feel left out...

2008-05-14T20:42:00.005-04:00

Just two random pieces... found in sketchbooks. This time, my stuff and from the late '80s.

The top is the color break for the cover for a slightly-above-ground entertainment and radical weekly rag. The point of the thing was to illustrate and accompany the breaking the news that the profits from the Communist Chinese "Son of Heaven" exhibit (of ancient terra-cotta soldiers touring the US, and at the moment in Columbus, Ohio) funded the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Proudly, I did this (what I thought then, and think now) terrific editorial-esque cover art... the "Son of Heaven" logo made of spilled and splattered blood on the stones of the Square.

My cover was killed just before it went to press. The editors spinelessly balked at the last minute at my trenchant and pointed statement - and a much feared lawsuit. I forget what they ended up going with. Some pablum done by someone else.

I should have demanded my artwork back and a "kill" fee.

The little black and white 'toon I did, beneath it, on a much lighter note, has always been something I've loved (to be humble yet honest). I won't shock you, or gross you out, however, with the true story therein lies.

Will Finn and Mike Bushpig

2008-05-14T20:24:00.003-04:00

Just so Will doesn't feel left out... a sketch of his (found in my sketchbook) circa the same time period...

Ray McAnallen

2008-05-14T20:09:00.002-04:00

Finally. I found this example of Ray's cartooning prowess. It is from his business card done just before he graduated from AiP. And it has been blown up to grainy proportions.

But it is the best I can do... and find.

Ray?

Bob Sallows

2008-05-14T19:56:00.003-04:00

As I've mentioned, Bob was a cartooning instructor at AiP. Taped in an old sketchbook from my days there, I found this newspaper ad he did.

Mike Malle

2008-05-14T18:52:00.003-04:00

Mike Malle, along with Will Finn, Ray McAnallen and myself - cartoonists all - happily gravitated towards one another whilst students at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, back in the later half of the 1970s. As mentioned in a previous blog, we caricatured for money. And attention. Mostly for the attention. But the money didn't hurt. Not a bit. No sir.

Malle did these great illustrations. First, of the four of us (top)... beginning at upper left corner and heading clock-wise; Malle, McAnallen, Gillett and Finn. And, in the bottom pic, I am on the left, Will the right.

Malle, sometime after graduation, returned like a roe-filled salmon to its birthplace, and has been an instructor now at AiP for quite a few years. And is also quite an illustrator of some renown.

I am still trying to find some sample of McAnallen's cartoons from the day. Ray - help me out here, dude.

Terence Tyler Riley

2008-05-13T19:40:00.008-04:00

More recently found stuff of mine. "Terence Tyler Riley" was a weekly comic strip done fifteen years ago for the Marion (OH) Star, where I was their editorial cartoonist... "TTR" appeared in the weekend's high school feature section.

Read the previous post for my thoughts about jewel or corpse.

Earth Pig

2008-05-13T18:56:00.005-04:00

More recently unearthed Earth Pig. Now, I suppose that uncovering something can be taken two ways. You can dig up either long lost buried treasure. Or disinter something old, dead and stinky.

Your call.

Either way, this stuff has got to be at least 25 years old.

Great mimes think alike.

2008-05-13T18:18:00.003-04:00

This is today's (May 13) "Pearls Before Swine". Check out my post here on Blank Fields... from March 8... "From My Sketchbook..."

"Shout louder! Maybe your god is in the bathroom..."

2008-05-13T17:45:00.008-04:00

Besides the Apostle Paul ("I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves." Galatians 5:12) and, of course Jesus, Elijah is one of my favorite Bible characters.

This Old Testament prophet was a real Baal-buster (I Kings 18).

These cartoons were some done some time back for a "sequential image, stereophonic, multimedia event" for Children's Worship.

"I do believe in spooks...

2008-05-12T19:31:00.007-04:00

... I do believe in spooks... I do, I do, I do..."

Okay. I don't. But a lot of people do. And especially in spooky places.

Like at the Historic Fort Wayne. They say that the sally ports - labyrinths of tunnels deep in the 150 year-old walls of the forts - are haunted. And you could almost understand why. Dark as pitch - even in the daytime - except for what light you bring with you and what little squeaks through the gun ports. At nighttime they are suitably and justifiably spooky.

Very late one night, during the recent Civil War reenactors' drill there, one young and brave soldier thought he would spend the night, sleeping in one of the sally ports. There are, at the top of the walls, air vents. A couple of us climbed up and serenaded the lad, through the vent, with faint and eerie harmonica music for a few, and we trust spooky, minutes.

And then we merrily went off to bed, safe in the barracks. In the morning, it was discovered at first call someone was missing! The fellow who was spending the night in the sally port wasn't there. Or anywhere else. Not a sign at all. His car, we found, was still there.

We were more than a little concerned.

After some searching we found him in a room in the large barracks... innocently and soundly sleeping away. He had come back in, sometime during the night, not being able to get comfortable on the stone in the damp and cold. And so found a quiet, warm- and safe - corner to curl up in. Ultimately, he saw to it they the joke was on us!

At least once, on these weekends, we often will take midnight candle-lit tours of the sally ports. Following is a photograph of Dan ("Old Pete") Conklin, Randy ("Previs") Perry, Jim Cary and Mark Heath... with a friend. We were doing some paranormal investigating and found that, maybe - just maybe - the sally ports are haunted by spooks after all. But somehow, we sensed that are "friendly"...

New season...

2008-05-09T18:45:00.002-04:00

...new hat.

"Better get a bucket."

2008-05-08T21:18:00.003-04:00

Terry Jones as Mr. Creosote, from
"Monty Python's Meaning of Life".

Still more old crap I've drawn found put away in the garage.

Bill Mauldin

2008-05-08T19:16:00.004-04:00

The late, great Bill Mauldin was/is/always will be my idol. A wonderful editorial cartoonist and crusty booger, Mauldin wrote his autobiography, "The Brass Ring" in the early 1970s. As a kid, then, at East Jr., I shyly asked the librarian at the Binghamton Public Library to direct me to the books on cartoons and cartooning, he did so by dutifully pointing me towards the 741.5s. But as I turned to go up the stairs, he stopped me and suggested a new book they had just gotten in. "The Brass Ring". I allowed that I had never heard of the author and nor could I recall seeing his work. The librarian explained that Mauldin, an editorial cartoonist for the "Chicago Sun-Times", who had made his bones in WWII as a soldier cartoonist for "Stars and Stripes" in Europe.

I hadn't given much consideration to this branch of cartooning... and while I loved animated stuff - mostly "Looney Tunes"... I was really more in some day doing daily newspaper comic strips. But I checked the book out; my curiosity sufficiently piqued.

I'll always be grateful to that nameless librarian for doing me such a favor. I'll go into more detail later about Mauldin's influence on my life. And I'll post more of Mauldin's stuff later. But I was out in the garage this afternoon, and found my old sketchbooks squirreled away. This delightful sample of Mauldin's work from the early '80s (clipped originally, I admit, from Playboy) taped in the pages one of the sketchbooks. I don't know if I noticed before, but my idol screwed up on the perspective of the tank of the john...

I wrote, the first time to Bill Mauldin in 1973. I don't recall what I wrote, but I'm sure it was a gushing piece of embarrassing fan mail, and with it I must have sent him a sampling of my work, with a request for him to critique. And maybe for a piece of his work while he was at it. Sort of a swap.

He wrote back, "Thanks for your note with the enclosed cartoon which you sent me. I feel that it is a mistake for a practicing member of the cartooning trade to comment on a colleague's work. You should send your work to a professional art teacher or an editor."

I wrote him again, some time later, and pointed out that several times in "The Brass Ring", he elaborated - happily - that as a kid and later as an art student, that he had asked - and received - patient input from many professional cartoonists. I recall I also reminded him that these gracious cartoonists were generous enough to leave him with an autographed original or two to boot. Shouldn't he do no less?

His secretary responded in his stead: "Mr. Maudin has been traveling but I did read your letter over the phone to him. He asked me to tell you that since it has become painfully clear to him in his middle age (I've just realized that he was, then, just a couple of years older than I am, now, for Pete's sake) he isn't going to be able to leave his children an estate, he feels the least he could do is leave them a pile of old cartoons. Therefore, he has been making it a practice to hang on to his stuff. He says it's nice to be asked, though."

His conscience must have been pricked, for in a few months, Mauldin had his secretary write me once again: "Mr. Mauldin asked me to tell you that the reason he ordinarily doesn't comment of art work sent to him is because he travels so extensively that it could be possibly take up to six months before he would be able to respond. However, Mr. Mauldin says that if you are willing to wait that length of time, please feel free to send him a sample of your work to him."

By then I figured, the hell with it.

More pictures - as promised - of Disney World...

2008-05-05T20:28:00.007-04:00

Men of the Cloth (especially if the cloth is heavy, blue wool)

2008-05-05T19:30:00.005-04:00

Above is a picture of me with fellow chaplain and Civil War Reenactor, Steve Rossio - from the 1st Michigan Infantry, taken last month at Ft. Wayne. I meant to post this with the other pictures - forgive me, Steve. To make up for it, pard, here are a couple others... the first here is also from Ft. Wayne... last November. The second is of the good chaplain in action... at the event of the year - the battle at Jackson, MI - last year. It is he in the foreground with the tan canteen.

Green Street Fair

2008-05-05T18:21:00.004-04:00

This past weekend I pulled duty at another caricaturing gig for the Art Institute of Michigan, in nearby Plymouth. This one - the Green Street Fair - sure was considerably warmer than the icy Ice Festival in the winter. Above are two examples of my wares... the top is of Mike McClure. Mike and his family had the booth next to AiMich's - selling their pickled cukes. Like many of the other food vendors, McClure's Pickles were handing out samples. Unlike most of the other food vendors, McClure's Pickles was constantly crowded (and with many repeat sampler-ers)... and justifiably so. They sell two terrific varieties... garlic and spicy dills. Mmmmmmmmm! I am a man who loves pickles (somewhere I've got a picture of me as a kid munching on one... so my love isn't anything new!). And McClure's - unsolicited testimony here - have got to be the best pickles I have ever had! Check out their website - mcclurespickles.com And be ready to order a couple of jars. You won't regret it!

The bottom fellow is a wonderfully likable fellow named Thom Haneline, who is a High School Rep for the Art Institute (http://aiadvantage.com/adv/). I've shared the booth with Thom, and the rest of the crew from AiMich at all the events - they are all great people... but Thom is the only one who looks like a hobbit-all-grown-up. And as a funny and theatrical soul, he is entertaining... his imitation of a New Yorker is spot-on.

"It's a Mall World After All"

2008-05-03T07:51:00.005-04:00

We just returned from a few days at Disney World. Neither Karen or I had ever been there and we had a wonderful time. But we couldn't help but notice that where ever we went, we were literally in a land owned and ruled by Disney. Anything bought was Disney-approved and the money pocketed by Disney. A Coke, bought here in Detroit for a buck and a quarter, cost nearly $3.00 there. The price of bottled water was just as bad. We were prisoners - we had no choice but to pay up. Every worker we saw (and didn't see - which was creepy in itself) - and the number had to be astronomical - was owned by Disney. From the time we arrived (and loaded onto a Disney bus) and crossed the boarder into the huge place on Thursday until we left (again, on a Disney bus), we never left land owned by Disney. Everything we touched, everywhere we walked, was owned by Disney and planned to the smallest detail by Disney. The hotel included. We ate Disney food, showered in Disney water with Disney soap, breathed Disney air. Every one of the hundreds of gift shops and gift kiosks sold only Disney stuff. And after the first dozen, they all looked alike. There was no other world outside of Disney World. Nothing you could buy or see. I was a bit surprised we could still use our cell phones or watch network television - apart from the Disney Channel, ABC and ESPN, that is. Cults have nothing on Disney. Cuba has nothing on Disney.

I imagine if I had a DreamWorks t-shirt on or a Bugs Bunny hat on, security would have escorted me to the border.

Cemetery Walk

2008-05-02T20:17:00.005-04:00

Not too long ago, on my way to one of the 21st Michigan's (my Civil War reenacting unit) drills, I stopped at an old cemetery not far from my house. I had both time and my camera. I love cemeteries. I like spending time there. Old ones most especially. With all the varied, old headstones. With all the histories and all the stories. I dislike the new kind with identical markers all flush with the ground. We've got three of those kinds around the corner from our house. I've never visited any of them. They have no personality. Happily, I won't be buried in one. I’d hate to spend eternity in a "Memorial Park". I find comfort in the knowledge that I'm being buried with one of my Civil War ancestors.

I especially love to visit cemeteries where I know someone. Family. Know their stories - if only in part - beyond the inscriptions. But all my people are in Upstate New York. So I don't get any of that here in Metro-Detroit. But I make do. I still very much like to walk slowly up and down the rows and pray and ponder. I like to think that someone is walking through my family's burying grounds pondering and praying too. Reading the inscriptions. Wondering. Who were those people, that family? What are their stories? What were they like? What did they see? Do they have family around today? Do they know or do they remember? Do they care? There are cemeteries all over the countryside and in cities. Most people don't take notice them. I do. "Cemetery! I win!" is my favorite car-trip game [The rules are simple. It's not how many cemeteries you spot - or if you see one first, but who first sees the last one before you arrive at your destination. You never know when or where the last one will be, so you have to keep your eyes peeled. For more of a challenge, you must be the first to shout the name of the cemetery and then "I win". I often am the champ. Not only because I have a sharp and trained eye, but because I am driving and I purposely take routes past cemeteries!].

And like I said, I like old graves and old gravestones. The fresh ones' loss and grief is too new and too, well, fresh. In my time as pastor, I've buried far too many people and stood amongst those mourning at the gravesides to find anything comfortable or comforting in that posture.

I am sure at one time it was all farmland, but today this old cemetery is suburbanly tucked in amongst a strip mall and one of those medical office centers. Across the street is an auto parts store. The traffic zipping by unseeing. The day was cold, gray and gloomy to begin with. And as I walked through the cemetery, my spirit grew cold, gray and gloomy to match. The cemetery wasn't well taken care of, I suppose, because of the winter months. There was bits of trash, dead branches fallen from bare trees, and the stones showed evidence of vandalism. And what punk kids didn't do, Mother Nature, with her freezes and thaws did. The headstones looked a lot like the "before" picture in an orthodontist's office. I regretted stopping.

But there I was, camera in hand, so I stayed. I figured I was there for a purpose and I looked for it. And so, I looked for a Civil War veteran. Many I suppose could have been, but there wasn't any real way of knowing. Birth and death dates suggested that some were occasional within the realm of possibility. Sometimes there is an obvious clue inscribed on the marker. Or a brass flag holder. But I wasn't finding either. There were several US flags, but almost all were lying on the ground, either having been blown over or kicked over. So I busied myself in picking them back up and pushing them in the ground, hopefully in close proximity to their owners. That chore cheered me up considerably.

One flag, quite sun-faded and a bit tattered, was lying atop a piece of trash. But when I went to pick it up, I found that the trash was attached, by a length of silver gift wrap ribbon, to the flag. And that it wasn't trash, but a small laminated placard. It told of a man named Abner Delos Austin who had been in the Civil War; his grave a few feet away. Abner had served, it proudly told me, in the 24th Michigan Infantry - the Iron Brigade - and had been wounded at Gettysburg. It - the flag and sign - had been placed there "with loving admiration and great respect from his great great granddaughter Kristina Austin Scarcelli - Mrs. Michigan 2006" last Memorial Day.

Later when I got home, I "Googled" Abner and up popped up a link to Kristina's website
(www.kristinascarcelli.com) and to more information on Abner. I learned that he was born in 1846, perhaps in New York State, his family moving here to Michigan shortly after his birth. He was orphaned at four when both his parents died in Detroit of cholera. Older brother Charles was six. Abner was taken in and raised by the Milroy family on Five Mile in Redford. Abner lost track of his brother, who had been taken in by another family elsewhere.

He enlisted in the Union Army in August 1862, claiming to be 19 years old while he was, in actuality, just 16. Abner was shot in the left hand on July 1, 1863 at Gettysburg. According to the website, "the mine ball entered somewhere between the fingers and the knuckles and split the hand in two and exited at the back of the wrist." The hand was to be amputated but Abner was sent to a hospital in Philadelphia, where doctors were able to save it and so he served out the rest of the war in the Invalid Corps. However, he never regained full use of his hand; it never healed properly and it was never much more than a claw. After his discharge, Abner returned to Michigan, married and had two sons.

Later, when applying for the Veterans' Bounty, his name was included on an eligibility list in the Post Office with other Michigan Civil War veterans. Abner found his brother, Charles' name just below his. They hadn't seen or heard from the other since their parents' death. So they were reunited. Abner died in 1901, at the age of 55, ultimately, from his injury from Gettysburg.

I wrote to Kristina Austin Scarcelli, introducing and explaining myself. She told me that she has been leaving these placards on Abner's grave every Memorial Day for many years… ever since, at age 16, she discovered this ancestor - Civil War and genealogy as well - while working on a history project in high school. Kristina is terribly excited to be going to the 145th Gettysburg and cannot wait to have her picture taken at the 24th's monument!
(www.hometown.aol.com/michigan24th)

She wrote, "I share your sadness each time I visit Abner's grave and wonder why so many who fought to protect our freedom could be so easily forgotten. But I can also understand how easily our ancestors can be lost. I would never have known that Abner existed had it not been for my high school history teacher, who impressed so strongly upon me how important it is to have a "relationship" with those who came distantly before me."

Reenacting and genealogy are two wonderful and enjoyable ways of remembering those who've come before us. This story of Abner, which Kristina had found and shared, is a story of every soul who once breathed and is now buried 'neath the sod. Cemeteries are so numerous that we pay little attention to them. Some are small and almost lost - indeed, some are lost and forgotten - ill-tended. Others are massively huge and well-taken care of. But each one, and each grave, has a story. Not all can be told. But we must do what we can with those we can. We've Civil War reenactors have chosen to specialize in the Civil War Era. Some militarily and some as civilians. But all with a reverence and a love for the time and of the people.

Reenactors tend to be people with love of Family, of Faith and of Country. It's certainly true of the 21st. It's isn't mandatory, of course, but the three seems to goes hand-in-hand with reenacting. It is right and good that our official reenacting "season" begins with the big Memorial Day Weekend event - Memorial Day began as a way of honoring Civil War Veterans - Civil War Remembrance at Greenfield Village (www.thehenryford.org/events/civilwarremembrance). part of the Henry Ford Museums in Dearborn. Like Abner Austin's great great granddaughter who wonders "why so many who fought to protect our freedom could be so easily forgotten", it is a very real risk. Even for us. Patriotism isn't politically correct any longer. Discussion of an America at war is just an opportunity for Bush-bashing. Families are spread thin and wide. Distant beyond mere location. It takes effort and it takes time. If we add decades and centuries into the mix, remembrance of both our country's and our family's pasts is left untended like a forgotten and hidden graveyard tucked amongst the busyness of modern life. We all, like the teacher who taught Kristina the importance of having a relationship with those who came distantly before us, too can make a difference in this and coming generations. This Memorial Day, we all need to remember the literal holiness of the holiday. Enjoy the grilling and the long weekend. But never forget what it was meant to be all about. We reenactors are both teachers and torch bearers.

More Images from the Michigan U.S. Combined Arms Drill Weekend at Historic Ft. Wayne, Detroit

2008-04-21T20:42:00.012-04:00

THE SAME CANTEEN
by Private Miles O'Reilly

There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours,
Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers,
    And true lover's knots, I ween;
The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss,
But there's never a bond, old friend, like this,
    We have drank from the same Canteen!

It was sometimes water, and sometimes milk,
And sometimes apple-jack "fine as silk;"
    But whatever the tipple has been
We shared it together in bane or bliss,
And I warm to you, friend, when I think of this,
    We drank from the same Canteen!

The rich and great sit down to dine,
They quaff to each other in sparkling wine,
    From glasses of crystal and green;
But I guess in their golden potations they miss
The warmth of regard to be found in this,
    We drank from the same Canteen!

We have shared our blankets and tents together,
And have marched and fought in all kinds of weather,
    And hungry and full we have been;
Had days of battle and days of rest,
But this memory I cling to and love the best,
    We drank from the same Canteen!

For when wounded I lay on the center slope,
With my blood flowing fast and so little hope
    Upon which my faint spirit could lean;
Oh! then I remember you crawled to my side,
And bleeding so fast it seemed both must have died,
    We drank from the same Canteen!

Hysteric Fort Wayne

2008-04-20T20:20:00.005-04:00

Okay, so the name of the place is "Historic Fort Wayne"... But we do laugh a lot.

I will be posting more pictures from this weekend soon. So be sure to check back! I've got boatloads of pictures and stories (AirBrogans and Pop-Tacks to name a few).

Fr. Bob Miller

2008-04-15T21:06:00.005-04:00

Last night I was blessed to have attended the Ann Arbor (MI) Civil War Roundtable's meeting where Fr. Robert Miller, the author of the terrific book "Both Prayed to the Same God: Religion and Faith in the American Civil War" spoke.

I had bought my copy last year (after excerpts were reprinted in a couple of issues of the "Citizens' Companion" - a civilian Civil War Reenactor magazine) and have corresponded some with him. I've enjoyed both him and his book.

It was a great time and Fr. Bob is a gifted speaker and studied Civil War Nut. And I am happily and proudly plugging his book here!

I would direct you to Fr. Bob's website: http://www.robertjmiller.net.

Religion was unashamedly and unabashedly important in America in those days and Fr. Bob goes into wonderful detail on how the Church was the center of life preceeding the Civil War... and so much more.

He has a couple of wonderful chapters on the military chaplain during the war. I would like to quote briefly one of my favorite passages... (and I have many - I must show restraint otherwise I'd quote the entire volume!)...

The Civil War chaplain - like all pastors of any time period - often met with resistance or even animosity (and often, and sadly, justifiably). There was a vote to chose the chaplain of the 73rd New York. The results were described as such: "Over 400 voted for Catholic priest, 154 for any kind of Protestant minister, 11 for a Mormon and 335 said they could find their way to hell without the assistance of clergy."

It is a great read and one you won't regret. And to quote LeVar Burton on "Reading Rainbow": "...you don't have to take my word for it - read for yourself."

Fr. Bob has a few other books as well.. I can assume - and I am sure correctly - that they are every bit worth the time, energy and money to read!

"Farm Livin'"

2008-04-13T08:11:00.003-04:00

This is one of my favorite images of all time. It shows, circa 1900, the Gillett family during hop-harvest time. This was a rented farm, in the Middlefield/Roseboom area of Otsego Co., New York. Not too far from Cooperstown.

In the front row on either end, are my great great grandparents... Irene Isabelle Cossart Gillett (1845-1918) and Orvill Claudius Gillett (1838-1912).

In the back row, far left is their son, John L. Gillett (1874-1924) with his wife, Anna McMorris Gillett (1877-1952) and daughter, Irene Gillett (1898-1952).

In the front row, fourth and fifth from the right, is Orvill and Irene's son, Herbert Gillett (1863-1928) and wife, Clara Ellington (or Ellingham?) Gillett (1851-1925).

Next to Clara, or perhaps to Orvill, is Orvill's first cousin, Russell Gillett (1841-abt. 1912).

The little boy in the back row, in the bibs next to his cousin, Irene, is my grandfather, Orville C. Gillett (1891-1983).

Angola, Indiana

2008-04-12T17:01:00.003-04:00

This is a terrific, terrific event. I attended last year (second from the left, back row) was very glad I did, went home with a glowing report - and this year the 21st Michigan is going to be a part of it! I had been asked to come and be the Union chaplain for the weekend (pre-battle prayers, period church service, and battlefield ministry). I didn't know a soul, but said "YES!" In reenacting, it only takes a minute to make a "pard"! Everyone was incredibly friendly and warm. And it was a great time. The little tow-headed fellow in the front row - son of one of the privates - was our "runner". And he got shot and took the "hit" well. I picked him up - whispered to him to hang limp in my arms - after running some 20 or 25 yards, I realized I was all done in and whispered to him again, "You are too heavy, I am going to get shot and killed too... just fall like a rag doll when I do!" I did and he did and so we took a nice sunny afternoon nap the rest of the battle!

Mark you calendars! September 26-28 in the 85 acre Commons Park in Angola, Indiana. It is hosted by the 30th Indiana Infantry, Co. F and the 50th Virginia Infantry, Co. D

Check out their website http://angolareenactment.com/

"You can cartoon a piano, but you can't cartoon a fish"

2008-04-12T16:52:00.007-04:00

...just some assorted sundries... for your perusal...

"Friends"

2008-04-12T15:42:00.004-04:00

Not "Friends" like Joey and Chandler. "Evangelical Friends," like the church. They can trace their roots back to "Quakers," like in the movie, "Friendly Persuasion." I pastored a small Evangelical Friends Church for a time in rural Byhalia, Ohio. You can see it here in the one photograph.

The bottom-most picture is of myself (kneeling at the altar in the center, with Karen), the night I, along with several other pastors, were "recorded". Certainly not musically! Friends don't ordain, but instead feel that they can only "record" God's calling, equipping and ordaining of the minister.

The top photograph is of Karen and I, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, with Dr. John Williams. The church had an open-house for us... a combination affair to celebrate our milestone anniversary, to show their thanks during "Pastor Appreciation Month" and to say "farewell".

John Williams - not the famous conductor of the Boston Pops and composer of a zillion movie soundtracks - came as the morning's guest speaker and to celebrate with us. Dr. John is almost as famous as the other John Williams... he is the General Superintendent of the Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region (EFC-ER) and the Regional Director of the Evangelical Friends International - North America (EFI-NA). He is also a direct descendant of the founders of the Friends' college in Canton, OH - Malone College.

So it was quite an honor - this and every time he came for a visit.

"The Picture of Dorian Graybeard"

2008-04-12T11:55:00.008-04:00

The top photograph, of me and my esposita, was taken in Pittsburgh, PA, in February of 1978. We both look, approximately, the same age. Because, well, we, approximately, are.

And she wasn't my esposita at the time. To be precise.

The next photograph, again, of me and my esposita, was taken in Mt. Gilead, OH, exactly twenty years later, in February of 1998. She, not only now my little spouse, is also the mother of my two children. She still looks a teenager. As if no time has elapsed.

I, however, look like more than twenty years have gone by since the first picture.

In the next two pictures, taken now ten years later than the second, I look like I have aged much more than the thirty years that have passed since the first picture was taken.

With my wife, my esposita, my girlfriend-for-life... still looking every bit as young as she did when I first met her.

I shouldn't be surprised. Angels don't age.

"Gettest Thou to Gettysburg!"

2008-04-12T10:55:00.004-04:00

Back in late June of '04, my uncle, Neil Payne, and I spent the week at Gettysburg. We stayed at the Artillery Ridge Campground, on Taneytown Road. Our wives and children stayed away.

We drove the battlefields, walked the battlefields, looked at the battlefields in a diorama and on an electric map, listened about the battlefields on cds... and rode the battlefields - as pictured here - on horseback.

By the end of summer, I had become a Civil War Reenactor.

Thanks, Unca Neil!

"#*@%? POTHOLES!"

2008-04-12T08:20:00.004-04:00

...or is it "chuckholes"? Regardless, they are a pain in the shock absorber, aren't they? Here is Detroit, Michigan we welcome the snow... it fills in the potholes! Never, any other time of the year, are the roads ever quite as smooth...

Pvt. George

2008-04-10T20:29:00.001-04:00

jethrotull.com

2008-04-10T19:12:00.012-04:00

I wished I lived in Italy - what a great name for a fan club - or in England - you know that I'd shop there.

They apparently know who Tull is. And what. All I ever get is, "Is he still alive?"

I was asked just this at the US/Canadian border when returning from the Tull concert last year in London.

"Well, they are still together, touring, yes," was my polite - if terse - reply.

I assumed that they meant the rock band, not the inventor of the seed drill (in 1701), who died in 1741 in England.

Please note the obvious difference:

Jethro Tull the man

Jethro Tull the band

And while we are on this topic, a great and funny bit of correspondence...

"Dear Ian (the above pictured front man for Tull),

...My question is this, at the end of the concerts you push out into the crowd large pink balloons. The crowd enjoys the activity; pushing and jumping for joy. It came to me that these balloons may symbolize life, or an embryo and the crowd is the sperm. The breaking of the pink embryo is fertilization... I know you receive thousands of messages a week, but would you mind telling me if this is how you see it also...

All the best,

Ric"

"Dear Rik,

The way I see it is this: Many years ago, I bought a huge lot of discounted balloons which I am still getting rid of. I toss them out into the audience at the end of the show to take their attention away from me since I am sweaty, a bit fat and balding.

Regards,

Ian Anderson"

...anyway - I had some surgery a few years ago and laid there on the couch, so I am told, loopy on some pretty good painkillers... and babbled-on non-stop for quite a while, again, so I am told, about how very, very wrong it is to have Jethro Tull albums in record stores under "T" for Tull - instead of "J" for Jethro Tull. My wife and kids just shook - and shakes - their collective heads in embarrassed disbelief.

In fact, to this day, when I take it upon myself to reorganize the cds at "f.y.e" at the mall to correct this frequent and horrid mistake, my family suddenly finds themselves busy in another part of the store.

I generally dislike actor Owen Wilson with an intensity usually saved for dictators, despots and drivers who pull in front of me and then go slow... but in the 1998 movie "Armageddon", he has one terrific line with an encounter with a NASA shrink:

Oscar: "I tell you one thing that really drives me nuts, is people
who think that Jethro Tull is just a person in a band."

Psychologist: "Who's Jethro Tull?"

"Legends and Legacies"

2008-04-08T19:53:00.007-04:00

My very favorite episode of "Little House on the Prairie" is from its eighth season (January of 1982), and is entitled "The Legacy". It is very different than other episodes of the long-running series since it shows - albeit briefly - a modern scene (in a "flash-forward"). A couple has just purchased an antique table, branded with the initials "CI" on its underside. They wonder about its history and its maker, and if memory serves, were saddened that they would never know either. Then in "flash-back", we see how Charles Ingalls - "Pa" - came to make this piece of furniture. "Pa" took a chance at making a legacy for his family and tried to become a successful, famous furniture maker in "the big city". But, instead, he finds himself and his talents taken advantage of by the shady boss and leaves his employ. Resigned and dejected, "Pa" returns to his home and his family. But by show's end, he realizes that his legacy is his family. But I can't help but think that the table he built was a pretty neat legacy to have left behind… especially if it stayed in the family.

On a recent trip to the Henry Ford Museum, we spent the day looking at other peoples' stuff. There were Edgar Allen Poe's and Mark Twain's actual desks from whence they wrote, perhaps some of their more famous works. The actual "Rosa Park Bus" was part of a moving exhibit on Civil Rights. There was the actual limousine in which JFK was riding in when he was shot. And, perhaps the most awe-filling display, there just inches away behind glass, sits the actual rocking chair that Lincoln was seated in, at Ford's Theater, when he was shot. I marveled, not in the gruesome thought that this stain was his blood and brain matter (although that bit of reflection is unavoidable), but that his fingers drummed the arms while sat and watched the play. He - the great man - had actually touched this furniture; stretched and rested his weary and lanky frame in it! How Lincoln, with the long War now finally over, undoubtedly felt the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders. How he leaned over and smiled at Mary. And thought of his future, perhaps - like most politicians - of his legacy.

There was one of the few pieces of non-anonymous furniture, which we gravitated to and pondered greatly over. It was a very interesting and unusual press cupboard from early 18th century New England. And it had its original owner's name painted, quite decoratively, on the front. A wedding chest, it had "Hannah Barnard"… oddly, her maiden name. With some quick research it was found that Hannah, sadly, died a short time later after giving birth to her first child. And really, not much more is known about Hannah. Few traces remain as reminders of her life; but this chest and her gravestone.

Certainly, seeing the aforementioned more "famous" exhibits - and note that I used the word "actual" in each case as emphasis - can cause a feeling of awe and stir our emotions. But after seeing Hannah's press cupboard, I looked differently at the remaining - even those mundane and common place - pieces and exhibits at the Henry Ford. Each one (unless they went directly from factory to museum) had an actual owner (or several) who actually used that chair, this tool, drove this car… touching each one. I would well suppose that all of these owners never imagined that their plow, bookcase, or train engine would ever end up in a museum, centuries in the future, being stared at by strangers!

The stuff that fills museums - and antique stores, flea markets and garage sales - all have history! A personal history. Would that they could speak! Would that we might know their stories!

I doubt greatly, even the most arrogant of those whom we portray; Civil War Era Americans - soldiers or civilians, North or South - ever gave a thought that almost a hundred and fifty years later, they and their lives would serve as a hobby and be a fascination to a people such as us! Did they ever think someone - anyone - who didn't know them would spend money and weekends to "reenact" their daily lives and battles? Did the Yankee soldier who lost his canteen think that it would be sold for some exorbitant price in an auction on eBay? Did the young girl, born in 1850, who had received a tortoise shell hair comb as a gift from a beau off to war ever think that after she died, a great grandchild she would never meet, would sell it in a consignment shop? When a young Michigan couple gave a new Carte de Visite of themselves to a family member in Pennsylvania, that is would someday, end up in a state that didn't then exist, in a stranger's rec room next to his beer can collection? Did any of them think that someone, someday, would excavate the site of their privy as a form of archeology?

The repeated and obvious answer is "no". Any more than we, today, can imagine that our stuff will someday end up in a museum, in an antique shop or as decorations in some sort of twenty-third century "Max & Erma's" restaurant. Who besides us, would want our stuff - and most of us don't even want it, at least not for a long period of time. We have regular garage and yard sales to rotate out our old stuff and make room for new stuff (ironically often bought at someone else's garage sale). But to have our iPods or our BlackBerrys or our high school pictures or copy of the "Thick as a Brick" album or our Tiger's caps or our SUVs, all being stared at in a virtual museum, studied by fascinated historians and yawned at by bored school kids on a "field trip"? Please! Sure, we might reminisce about the "Good Ol' Days" (and that differs for all of us, even those the same age)… and we - CW reenactors - have a special attraction for that era of American history as well. For other reenactors, it is the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812 or World War I or II. But certainly, I cannot imagine someone, from the year 2158, say, being "reenactors" of our time period.

We cannot picture any of that, I believe, because as reenactors we are much better at imagining the past - and as people with pressures of modern life struggle with the here and now - more than imagining a hundred or two hundred years in The Future (most Science Fiction that I've read, deals with The Future in an "amazing" - and/or "horrific" -predilection and prediction, rather than simple daily, normal lives). For most of us, we simple have too many worries in the present and have too much fun in the past, to think too far forward into The Future. For most of us, it is more than enough for us to think to our retirement or perhaps, with a Life Insurance policy and a Will in hand, to A Day With-out Us Around. I doubt that a Yankee soldier on the battlefield was thinking to a day their great great grandchildren would be alive… a hundred and fifty years into the future. They were thinking would they live to go home the farm and get married to their sweethearts… or to go back home to their wives and children and make more babies with them? They really didn't have the luxury of projecting much beyond the immediate, did they?

But think about it, we are living in the present, and yet, living in someone's future - and someone's past!!! I doubt, for most of us, that we've thought much beyond our grandchildren (actual or prospective) - or at best, our great grandchildren. Well, alright, I have. But then, as my mom wrote about me in her diary when I wasn't yet fifteen months old: "…something's screwy someplace." I've gone into some detail in previous columns of how I got into genealogy and into history. But I'd like to take a different angle here (and, likely - hopefully - end-up making the same broad nib point). As a kid, I've mentioned, I was "into" history… and so my grandfather gave me some of his stuff (for instance his grandfather's portrait), rather than my older brother or any of our older cousins. He gave me his Columbia Graphanola Phonograph. It was the first thing he and his new bride bought "on credit" from the Fowler's Department Store in Binghamton, NY when they were first married in 1915. Another is a drop-lid Secretary Desk. Both of these I can see years later in photographs taken and his and Grandma's 50th Wedding Anniversary party. The point I want to make here, is this - at one time, they weren't "antiques".

He also gave me, then fourteen and in junior high school, a bunch of old books. Not as impressive or as useful as furniture, they stayed in the box for years. Then finally they were brought out because they looked good on the mantle in our Victorian home in German Village, when we got married, in Columbus, OH. Initially, I was primarily interested in the Gillett line of my ancestry and stayed pretty focused on just that/them. Eventually, I literally, "branched out" in include other lines. A how-to-book on genealogy book, that I had read, suggested that you check out old photographs or old books for any and all clues in your family history searchings.

So on a rainy day, I finally did just that, and so flipped through my library of "antique" books. One old and fragile book had written inside the cover "Mary Ann Reynolds" along with "George" and "John". The last name sounded familiar… I knew that my 4th great grandmother Lydia Gillett had been a Reynolds. It turned out that there was no connection there. However as I later dug through my notes (long before I had everything easily cataloged and quickly referenced on Family Tree Maker 2005), I happened to come across some notes that reminded me that there was another Reynolds line - on my Grandmother Gillett's side.

With some investigating I found that this Mary Ann Reynolds was my great great grandmother…and George and John her brothers. And this book was her American History schoolbook when she was a girl! Her copy of "The History of the United States from their First Settlement as Colonies to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815" ---- from 1846! Now some 162 years old, this was, at that time, brand-new!

Like "Pa" Ingalls with his table, my great great grandmother - then a child - had absolutely no idea that this book would be held in gently awe by her great great grandson. And I doubt Mary Ann thought it then or at any time before she passed away in 1900. I don't know what this woman looked like. I have no photograph of her. I know nothing of her personally or of her personality. I don't have a description of her or any other of her possessions. I've heard no stories. My grandmother (who passed when I was nine) - her granddaughter - to my recollection never spoke of her to me. I doubt Grandma had many memories of her grandmother. She would have been just seven when Mary Ann died. But somehow, she was given - and for some reason kept - this schoolbook. My grandfather kept it… solely because it had been his wife's or, perhaps, she told him who it had originally belonged to? And she was a young, married woman, with small children during the Civil War. Maybe her husband fought. Perhaps her brothers and cousins enlisted. I don’t know. I do know she had a nephew killed at Spotsylvania Courthouse. So what did she think of the "Confederate prisoner of war" camp ("The Death Camp of the North") in Elmira - just thirty miles away?

In my research I however know that her name was Mary Ann Reynolds, born Tuesday, 14 Nov 1837 in Nichols, Tioga Co., NY and that she died Thursday, 06 May 1900 on Reynolds Hill, in Nichols, aged 62 years, 5 months and 19 days… and was buried three days later - on Sunday - in Dunham's Field ("Old Riverside Cemetery") there in Nichols. She was the daughter of Joseph Reynolds and Sarah Babcock, one of eight children born them. She married Schuyler Bixby in Nichols, on Monday, 22 Dec 1856, his second wife. They had four children. A daughter who died at twelve days old and a son who died who died twenty-one days old. Her only living son never married. Her only living daughter would someday become my great grandmother, Stella Amanda Bixby Bixby, and who would give Mary Ann her only grandchildren. I can only find Mary Ann listed in the 1880 census for Nichols. Husband Schuyler Bixby is transcribed as Schaylin Bixley. Her father, Joseph, is living with Mary Ann and Schuyler… along with daughter Stella… I am not sure where son George was… that is pretty much it… all I know and can tell. No one is alive who knew her. Or knows anyone who knew her.

I have however visited her grave in an almost forgotten, old and overgrown cemetery on the banks of the Susquehanna River and have taken pictures of her gravestone in the family plot. A small plain stone, its inscription simply reads, "Mother", with her name and dates of birth and death. In a photograph that I took, I can see a small, dried flower on the top of the stone. Has someone remembered her?

I have however found her obituary - two versions actually. This from May 10, 1900 (Owego Gazette), "Mrs. Mary Ann Bixby, widow of Schuyler Bixby, died very suddenly at home on Reynolds Hill, Thursday afternoon, after an illness of a few hours of rheumatism of the heart, aged 62 years. A large assembly of sympathizing neighbors and mourning friends and relatives gathered at her late home Sunday, May 6 at 12m, to pay their last tribute of love and respect to her, of whom nothing but good was ever reported. None knew her but to love her. Rev. Moore, of Nichols, preached a very feeling sermon and spoke words of comfort to the sorrowing friends and her remains were laid at rest in the Dunham cemetery. She leaves the morning of a loving mother [- ? - her mother died some thirty years previous, however, her father was still living], one son George, at home and one daughter, Mrs. Orin Bixby, of this place, and four grandchildren [my grandmother, her sister and two brothers], besides a large circle of other relatives and friends." And this from some other local paper, dated May 7, 1900; "Mrs. Schuyler Bixby died suddenly Thursday of neuralgia [is this different than rheumatism?] of the heart, at her home on Reynolds Hill. She leaves two sons, George and Orin [actually, Orin Bixby was her son-in-law… as well as her nephew. This likely didn't bother Mary Ann in the least - for her parents were also first cousins and her husband's mother was a Reynolds as well and so Mary Ann and he, at best, were second cousins]; and a brother John S. Reynolds. The funeral was held from the residence yesterday, Prof. Moore officiating. Internment was in the public cemetery above Nichols."

As I spent time in this cemetery, I couldn’t help but think that this ground was actually walked upon by generations of my family. Time and time again they came for visits and burials - ultimately their own. There are few other places or few other things that I could say this with any kind of certainty, but like the Lincoln rocking chair, this I know this with great confidence: I know Mary Ann has walked in this cemetery…. I know that Mary Ann touched this book. I know my grandmother touched this book. As many of us go on a pilgrimage to Gettysburg (for some, twice this year!) and as you walk Pickett's Charge, visit Little Round Top or Devil's Den… walk the streets… tour the homes… you can know, without doubt, that actual people lived, worked, fought, bled and died there. That is both a legend and a legacy.

We Civil War Nuts and History Junkies live for those all too rare moments… the gooseflesh raised on our arms, the hair raised on the backs of our necks… when we realize - feel - that this was the spot, the place. We can hear, feel and smell the history - our ancestors - around us. There is a holiness about it.

Let's not cheat our "descendants" out of that same sweet experience. A "flash-backs", for them, is contingent upon "flash-forwards" for us. We talk about leaving a "global footprint" - usually in terms of ecology. But as historians we need to be sure we leave a foot print as well for the future. On a larger - and very important scale - there's the Civil War Preservation Trust's (CWPT) good work to be sure the history is there in the future. But individually, we can "preserve" our story - so it becomes history for someone. Take pictures (and label them). Video family members - interview them! Document and chronicle. Keep a journal or a diary or a blog. Write letters and save letters. Cell phone calls, emails and texting and IMing, though fast and convenient, unfortunately leave no record (well, except for the Mayor of Detroit - but you know what I mean!) for our kids or grandkids. I have love letters sent between my grandfather and grandmother before they were married, nearly 95 years ago. I have love letters sent between Karen and me before we were married almost thirty years ago (and throughout our marriage). I found letter recently that I wrote home when I went away to college. And letters from my mom from then and up to the time she passed. As I mentioned, I have my mom's diary from 1959 - and from several other years as well.

If there is a family heirloom (or something you want to become a family heirloom), tell your family or friends. Write it down. Include it in your will. Tell the story about it and write it down (even attaching it to the item). "This lamp was my Grandmother Wachter's wedding present from Grandpa". Don't let anybody have to guess. Or worse yet, think it isn't anything and have it in a garage sale or in the trash, after you go.

Write your biography. Karen's very quiet dad wrote a sort of memoir of his life - especially his childhood, for his kids and grandchildren. Karen didn't know most of that stuff about him until she read it. My Uncle Neil, at my prompting, has done the same. While I am as much a Genealogy Nut as I am a Civil War Nut (I know Ken Giorlando, J.R. Schroeder and Bill Jones and others are all as well), this isn't to push anyone into family history. But, really, most people couldn't tell you who the name of their great great grandfather or anything about them - and that is sad. Shouldn't we make sure we've left evidence of our lives? Shouldn't we make sure our descendents… 150 or 200 years into the future remember and know about us? Even just fifty! It won't take very long at all to be forgotten. I would be doing a disservice - as a Christian as well as your chaplain - if I didn't quote Matthew 6:19-21 here: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And I wouldn't presume to minimize that Truth. But we can with purpose leave treasures of a sort for those who come after us. Like so many of those who came before us did inadvertently!

Look at the Animals

2008-04-01T20:31:00.010-04:00

"The tiny ant leaves his tiny ant drops in the sand,
And makes his home inside a rusty watering can,
Occasionally going out to look for bread and jam.

He runs into a sparrow who hasn't eaten for a week,
And later, quite contented, the sparrow cleans his beak,
Failing to notice pussy cat has come out to take a leak.

Our cat partakes of dinner when a sodden kangaroo
Emerges from the undergrowth and asks to use the loo.
Kangaroos aren't usually dangerous,
for that would never do...

...This kangaroo's a lunatic and his pouch is very full
Of pussy cats and penguins who can't fly as a rule,
But then neither could the pussy cat:
he never went to school.

The kangaroo gets nervous when confronted by the size
Of an elephant named Simon who is always telling lies;
He swears he wears green corduroys
and can button up his fly.

Presently, a fatter Simon's indigestion fails.
He regurgitates the whole damn mess
into an aluminum pail,
And the tiny ant scuttles back inside his watering can
Occasionally going out to look for bread and jam."

This delightful song, written by Ian Anderson, is from Jethro Tull's previously unreleased "Chateau d'Isaster" tapes, from 1972-73ish, that finally (and most thankfully) saw the public light of day in JT's 1993's "Nightcap" album.

This before the release of "A Passion Play," and so "Look at the Animals" is perhaps a bit inspired by/inspirational in that album's longer, spoken and more famous animal tale, "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" (the vinyl album's intermission twixt Side A and Side B).

And maybe some Lewis Carroll.

With a pinch of "Aesop's Fables" and a dash of "Old Mother West Wind 'when' stories".

I don't know.

But I do know this is a clever little song with some wonderful imagery (and the tune is grand too). But then, I wouldn't expect anything less from Anderson... then or now.

Check back... I just might have to throw some illustrations in...

Nope. This isn't the 'before picture' in an ad for Grecian Formula...

2008-03-30T20:26:00.003-04:00

...I wanted to post yet further proof that I do indeed have friends who neither dress up in Civil War garb nor draw cartoons.

More sketchbook stuff... and meanderings...

2008-03-21T23:08:00.007-04:00

I found these two caricature drawings in with a box of other stuff. They've got to be a couple of years old, I suppose. I really like feel of the lines and shapes. I suppose that is why I hung onto them.

More recently, I caricatured at the Art Institute of Michigan-Detroit's Open House gala. At some gigs, all things come together nicely and I leave feeling pretty good and unapologetic about myself - and my stuff. This was one of them. The situation was perfect (i.e. a party at an art school for pity's sake - how much better than that can you get!). I've gotten to know the AiMD President (Ted Blashak) and the Academic Dean (Marc Sherrod) pretty well - and the rest of the staff - so I felt very comfortable (and welcomed).

And everyone knew what caricatures are and what they aren't.

I remember doing one gig at some big hospital at Christmas time, while at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, a holiday party for surgeons. Early in the evening I did a pretty good caricature of an thin, angular doctor. She wasn't very happy when I gave it to her. And as the evening wore on and as she got drunker, she grew even less pleased. She kept coming back and heckling me and cussing me out. Finally, she rolled up the picture and beat me about the head and shoulders with it. In self-defense, I got marker all over her new, expensive holiday dress. I imagine in the morning when she had sobered up, the marks puzzled her.

Another event was a multi-day deal one of the suburban 'burgh malls - at Horne's. There were several of us, each at a different Horne's. It was all part of a promotional deal for some expensive make-up. If you bought "X" amount of dollars in make-up products, you got a free caricature! Whomever thought up the idea, failed to realize that if you spent that kind of money on make-up, you really wouldn't much appreciate a cartoon that exaggerated your facial features! I think I did two or three caricatures the entire week. But we all got paid regardless. And it paid of my final quarter tuition so I could graduate with my class.

Finally, a few years ago in Ohio, I did two company picnic gigs back-to-back. Both at the same wooded recreational facility. One was in the morning and then the other in the early afternoon. The first was a dry and as boring as dust. It was for some ritzy Law firm - or maybe an Accounting firm. But in either case, everyone was stuffy, dull and bland. They were all ultra-conservative cookie cutters of each other (obligatory golf shirts and khakis and penny loafers). Like "The Firm" meets "The Stepford Wives". Stiffly drinking wine coolers and eating hor'durves. I tried to engage them and joke with them, but they would have none-of-that. I was the hired-help and like their maid or their caddy, I was to be barely tolerated and mostly ignored. Their kids were spoiled and snotty; and everyone was catty to the other and kiss-ass to the boss. I almost got up and left. It was that painful and un-fun.

The second half of the day was terrific! It was the company picnic for a trucking company. Everybody was having a great time, laughing and teasing each other. A real, salt-of-the-earth, red-necked, good-ol'-boys bunch. All fun to draw. Beards, bibs and ball-caps (and those were just the women). Husbands, wives, kids, the boss, truck drivers and mechanics and dispatchers - all enjoyable to be around. I felt much welcomed and very, very comfortable. I was able to joke with them and banter back and forth with the crowd. Everyone encouraged and teased each other about their caricatures. Loud " Lynyrd Skynyrd" and "Black Oak Arkansas" blasted from some pick-em-up truck's 8-track! They made sure I had plenty to eat from their tables and brought me Cokes... some tried to give me tip money.

And the night at AiMD was like that. I was in caricaturist's heaven! I wish I could have gotten copies of the ones that I did. In fact, after drawing a certain one, I told them that if I were to die that night, I would have gone happy and well-satisfied. I've done none better. And that is not to toot my own horn! If was the mix - not me. I can't take any credit. It must be like that for a musician or a stage actor, I suppose. Sometimes it all comes together just right - and it's magic - and I'm in heaven.

One or two, I think, I could do again from memory - they've stuck with me that much. And its been three weeks! Check back and see if I could and have posted them.

Fran Ford

2008-03-19T18:26:00.002-04:00

This is a portrait of Fran Ford. Fran was one of the cartooning instructors at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for many years. I recently heard from another AiP alum upon whom, Fran, along with John Johns and Thomas Helwig, had a great and lasting impact. It is at his request (and my pleasure) that I post this pic. This is from a promotional piece the school put together touting their staff... around 1978, I would suppose. As time goes by, I will post and comment on other instructors. Any requests?

One of those zits is a mole. Honest.

2008-03-16T19:06:00.008-04:00

And man, what is it with me and plaid sport coats!? At least the plaid is a bit smaller than the sixth grade picture. Still, ugly as homemade sin though (me, the coats, whatever). Here's a clue for you all, this was taken the year Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" was released.

Back in those days, we didn't have yearbook or class pictures taken every school year like they do now. I think I might have one other "professional portrait" from fourth grade maybe. I'll see if I can find it and post it. Other than that, this one and my "senior" portrait posted earlier, I have just one other - and that is my real senior portrait. I post-graduated - stayed an additional year (jocks usually do this to get one more year of high school football in - growth and experience - before playing college ball. I did it to get in some additional art classes. I went to a Vo-Tech school for Commercial Art my Junior and Senior years - half days - and missed a lot of what my High School had to offer).

Regretfully, I don't seem to have much of my work from Junior High School (and really, not much earlier than the stuff in my previous post from Senior High at that). And nothing from the Jr. High school newsletter. Dad had some water damage in his attic and my old stuff was lost.

These "Class Notables" were originally done for the school newspaper (again, which I don't have), but were reprinted in the yearbook (which, obviously, I do). Mr. (Joseph?) Wolfer, an English teacher, was the faculty adviser for the newspaper. I can't remember a thing he taught in class, but I will always remember his kindness to a painfully shy, chunky kid with a speech impediment... who had no identity or self-esteem (or hope for identity and self-esteem) other than he could draw half-well. In a future blog, I will go into more deserved detail about influential teachers.

You will recall that they took my Sr. High School and made it a Jr. High School (consolidating with the High School across town). My Jr. High School they tore down and put up a grocery store (and my Grade School they tore down "and put up a parking lot". At least my college still exists - and it doing great!).

...okay, I found them. And I am wearing a plaid shirt for Pete's sake! Like I said, maybe fourth - or maybe the fifth - grade.

In the senior portrait, the coat and tie are both borrowed (and, I don't know, maybe the shirt is too). In the other "senior" portrait - again, posted at an earlier date - the coat and tie were borrowed there as well. That shirt was mine. I was all for wearing a t-shirt and my jean jacket (in both), but the photographer would have none of it. His studio was in a strip mall, and he would take guys devoid of a coat and tie down the mall and borrow them from a clothing store. The girls tended to like getting dressed up and didn't need such hand-held encouragement. I do take satisfaction in knowing that, in both senior pictures, I am rebelliously wearing jeans and sneakers. I found another picture... even goofier, with me wearing the obligatory cap and gown. That can just stay in the box, alright? That is a blessing none of us deserves.

"The 21st in the 19th"

2008-03-16T17:37:00.009-04:00

The 21st Michigan Volunteer Infantry, my Civil War Reenacting group, does a myriad of fun things throughout the year. Besides the more obvious battle recreations and encampments, we march in parades and speak to schools, scouts and other groups. Last week, a few of us met with a local historical society... the "entertainment" at their monthly meeting. Here are a few photographs that I took. One of the nice things about the East Detroit Historical Society, in Eastpointe, is that they hold their meetings in a 1872 School House (its museum). We have our Christmas party (in period garb) there as well. The place is a well-cared for gem and it is easy to feel like we've gone back in time - and we live for that kind of rush!

"Valley of the Gwangi"

2008-03-16T06:19:00.005-04:00

My own personal version of

"Six (or is it Seven?) Degrees of Kevin Bacon".

Jeff Moore just emailed me this photograph (found on myconfinedspace.com). He thought I would enjoy it - and he was right! Civil War soldiers (Union, of course) with the pterodactyl that they shot...who would have thought!

It puts me to mind of the classic movie (from 1969, staring James Franciscus), "Valley of the Gwangi". One of my favorite movies as a kid (along with the original "Planet of the Apes" - 1968 - and the original "Time Machine" - 1960).

Check out this clip on YouTube... www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRkwR9zDRc

Cowboys find a lost valley of dinosaurs in the desert! It looks like this bunch of Yankees came across that same valley.

The late James Franciscus also starred in the first sequel to (the original) "Planet of the Apes", 1970s "Beneath the Planet of the Apes"... and the great television series about a newly blinded New Orleans investigator, "Longstreet" (just one season - in 1971 - back when seasons lasted some 24 episodes and lasted almost from Labor Day till Memorial Day).

Astronauts find a lost planet of apes!

The equally late James Gregory starred as the ape "Ursus" with Franciscus in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes". James Gregory had appeared in the pilot for the late Rod Serling's great "Twilight Zone" series (in 1959), "Where is Everybody?" as an Air Force general.

Rod Serling was raised in my hometown of Binghamton, in Upstate New York (graduating in 1943 from Central High - where my cousin Linda would one day graduate and where he would speak at her graduation). Rod Serling died (1975) at the same hospital, Strong Memorial in Rochester, where my Grandmother Payne and my mom had once been a patient.

The Greater Binghamton Area is known as the birthplace of IBM as well as the Link flight simulator. Binghamton was mentioned in several "Twilight Zone" episodes.

Franciscus played a German lieutenant in an episode of the "Twilight Zone" ("Judgment Night", 1959)... an episode oft-times compared with the aforementioned, "Where is Everybody?"

Not without coincidence, Serling also was a co-writer of the original "Planet of the Apes".

With much coincidence, James Gregory also starred in Serling's 1961 episode of the "Twilight Zone", "The Passerby". It is my all-time favorite "Twilight Zone"! Gregory here plays a Confederate sergeant at the end of the Civil War. In it, a woman waits on her porch, for her husband to return home after the war. Along the road before her home is a long line of soldiers marching by. Gregory stops and speaks with the woman. And it slowly becomes evident to her that he, along with all the soldiers, are dead... as is she... and that she should join them on their final journey.

I remember seeing that as a young kid and falling in love with the Civil War. It was just a cool on-going scene with all the unformed and bedraggled soldiers on the march...

H.D. - A.D.D.

2008-03-15T19:26:00.005-04:00

Looking back on my school years, I wonder what "title" I would have been bestowed with.

"Civil War Nut"

2008-03-15T10:54:00.007-04:00

This bottom photograph was taken the summer of 1978 (...I''ll give you this one: this was the year that Jethro Tull released "Heavy Horses" and "Bursting Out") in Pittsburgh while I was caricaturing at some outdoor festival. I remember that my face was pretty sunburned.

I was more than willing to slap down some of my freshly hard-earned money to have this Civil War picture taken. I've always been a Civil War Nut. However, in retrospect besides being Confederate, it is pretty "farby" (as in "far be it from accurate").

The top photograph was taken much more recently and is much more "period correct".

What you can't tell, however, is that in both photographs I am wearing blue jeans.

"Back to the Ol' Drawing Board"

2008-03-15T09:45:00.006-04:00

Just some random, recently uncovered, "at the drawing board" photos over the years. I won't date them, but I will, again, give clues. From bottom to top: taken the year Jethro Tull released "Broadsword and the Beast". Next, Tull's album "Rock Island" was released. Then, this was the year before their "Catfish Rising" hit the record stores. And finally, the first being last here, the year of Jethro Tull's "A Little Light Music".

High School Stuff...

2008-03-12T17:46:00.016-04:00

Above is some sampling of my work from high school. The photograph is of me from the yearbook, doing my best to look like a real cartoonist - even if the following samples of my work betray me.

The next two images are from the school newsletter. I was on staff, as the art editor. Which, in retrospect, was akin to putting the Hatter in charge of his end of the table at the Tea Party. However, Patricia Gazda Grace, who was the faculty adviser, was nothing but supportive and gracious. The co-editors-in-chief (Leon Cosler and Ray Ashman) were very tolerant of me as well. I was allowed to cartoon merrily to my heart's content. As I recall, the only cartoon she, and they, ever rejected was a large, multi-panel piece. I forget exactly what it dealt with (after being rejected, it accidentally fell into the trash, mysteriously crumpled and torn). But I do seem to recall some cartoon character in a stall in the school's boy's room, singing lyrics from Alice Cooper's "School's Out" (specifically, "School's out for summer, School's out forever, School's been blown to pieces") and something in the last panel that might have been "Ka-BOOM!"

I learned a couple of things by that experience. One, show a rough sketch before going ahead and doing the finished drawing in ink and zip-a-tone. I could have saved myself a lot of time. And Mrs. Grace might have been able to guide me so we'd both been happy. Two, don't be surprised when you get rejected. Three, save the rejected stuff - what I wouldn't kill to have that now. Four, "Ka-BOOMS!" - even more that thirty-years ago - isn't really something to joke about happening in schools.

The remaining two panels are from the school yearbook. Faculty adviser Larry Feltham was one - is one - of my favorite teachers. He treated us all like young adults (even when we - I - didn't act like it or deserve it). Like Mrs. Grace, Mr. Feltham was wonderfully encouraging of someone like me who might have had a modicum of latent or rudimentary talent.

He and the editor, Tom Farnetti, had me do the double-spread division pages throughout. The whole thing was on a Native American theme (we were the "Indians" after all - the school has since become a junior high school and the "new" combined/consolidated high school across town - our former rivals, the "Bulldogs" - and became something neutral... and safe and inoffensive... I want to say the "Patriots. But don't quote me) and it was the Bicentennial year as well. So the whole thing was played up big. It looks, as I flip through the book, that I had just discovered the fine art of stippling and went wild with the technique.

I also did the advertisements in the back of the yearbook. For the most part, all the ads were hand-lettered by yours truly with the occasional appropriate cartoon illustrations. It was Tom who gave me the idea of "Earth Pig"... for then, as now, I love to eat... Tom started calling me "Earth Pig" after I polished off a whole plate of Mrs. Feltham's delicious cookies while working on the yearbook at their home one night.

I was a surprised as any of them that no-one else got any.

Anyway, the thing then evolved into a character and a comic strip over the balance of the school year. I've heard that Tom is now an accountant, in Syracuse, NY, I believe. I like to think I had something to do with that. If Tom had been counting that night, somebody other than me would have had the chance to taste Mrs. Feltham's cookies.

From Will Finn's Sketchbook...

2008-03-11T20:26:00.005-04:00

I finally got out to the garage to hunt for Will's sketchbook (from December of 1977), from our days at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I am sure I have more of his stuff (on envelopes and in my sketchbooks, et c.) , but it was getting kind of cold out there. Maybe if spring ever comes to Michigan, I'll head out to look for more. I'll post some additional stuff over the next few months from his sketchbook (as long as it lasts or he tells me to knock it off!). But these are some of my favorites.

Starting at the bottom is a quick sketch of me blowing a gasket... and he nails me quite adeptly too. The background is that I had just found out that I gotten switched out of our classes together (and a little hottie I like to call "wife"). Ralph Bacon had gotten to the classroom before me and broke the news to everyone... that I "was no longer with them". They all thought I had died.

The top two pencil drawings Will did of mutual buddy and classmate - and the aforementioned, Ralph. Ralph was - and is - quite an artist in his own right, had this terrific white-fellow "afro" (much like the guy in "Room 222"... Bernie?). Ralph also was big time into all things medieval, including making his own chain mail from scratch. Will's got him down in the top one and the two as "Ralph Mouse" is as much Ralph as "Iago" is Gilbert Gottfried and "Cogsworth" is David Ogden Stiers (two of Will's characters at Disney as supervising animator).

Check out Ralph's stuff at http://www.nois.com/baconportfolio.html

From My Sketchbook...

2008-03-08T05:18:00.005-05:00

"This Was"

2008-03-06T17:16:00.003-05:00

I won't tell you when this picture, of me and my sixth-grade classmates, was taken. But I will give you a clue. Jethro Tull's debut album "This Was" had only just been released a few months previous and they had begun their first US tour.

I look literally squeezed into that ugly plaid sport coat. Like it's some sort of Scottish sausage casing and I'm the porcine filling. I don't know where it came from, but I pray I didn't wear it but this once. I do remember that it was a clip-on tie... and that the little pocket kerchief that is showing was fake. It was just a bit of folded cloth sewn onto a rectangle of cardboard. All in all, a rather classy get-up.

I won't embarrass anyone by identifying them, although I think I can recall everyone's name.

Pvt. Previs Perry

2008-03-04T20:26:00.003-05:00

"Pen Gillett"

2008-03-02T18:58:00.004-05:00

Okay, okay, Penn Jillette - the magician - as far as I know, isn't a relative (distant of otherwise). He well could be. He is an odd, odd man. My ears just perk up when I hear his name on the radio or television. "Pen Gillett" sounds like it would be a good cartoon feature someday. Too bad the name is taken.

Jillette is an atheist. I've read where his license plate reads "DOG ON". Which backwards is "NO GOD".

If that is what he wants to believe, that certainly is his right - but you'll never catch me riding in the in a car with the man.

"Gillette - The Best a Man Can Get"

2008-03-02T18:21:00.004-05:00

You'd be surprised how many times guys have tried to use this as a pick-up line with my daughters. Regardless, for the little bit of shaving that I do (and infrequently at that), nothing will do but a Gillette Good News disposable.

Anyway, King Camp Gillette, shown here, another distant relative of mine, is the inventor of the Gillette Safety Razor. He was a bit of an eccentric himself, and was a "Utopian Socialist" and advocated that "all of industry should be taken over by a single corporation by the public and that everyone in the US should live in a a giant city called Metropolis powered by Niagara Falls."

"Holmes, Sweet Holmes"

2008-03-02T17:48:00.003-05:00

The famous William Gillette, pictured here as "Sherlock Holmes", is a distant relative of mine. It was Gillette portrayal of Holmes on stage (and later in motion pictures) in the very late 1890s and first third of the 1900s, brought us the now firmly fixed and stereotypical image of the detective with a deerstalker cap, curved briar pipe, magnifying glass and violin.

Below, the eccentric Gillette Castle, built by Gillette in East Haddam, CT. overlooking the Connecticut River... was a kind of a early version of the "Neverland Ranch." It is now part of Gillette Castle State Park.

Today's trip to the Henry Ford Museum

2008-03-01T18:49:00.006-05:00

"You May Already be a Wiener!"

The "Weinermobile". This was right at the main entrance to the Museum. It was a long time before I got that stupid "my bologna has a first name..." song out of my head...

This is Edgar Allen Poe's portable writing desk. A first generation "lap-top".

This is the Montgomery (AL), city bus that Rosa Parks was riding on when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.

George Washington slept here. Quite literally. This is Washington's camp cot from his military days. The whole thing folds neatly into a wooden box, seen there at the head of the cot.

The limousine that John F. Kennedy was riding in, in Dallas, when Lee Harvey Oswald shot him.

The chair, from Ford's Theater, that Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when John Wilkes Booth shot him.

Abraham Lincoln delivering his "Gettysburg Address". History teaches us that Lincoln wrote the "Gettysburg Address" on the back of an envelope. But here we can quite plainly see that he wrote it on a scroll.

And this is Lincoln writing his "Gettysburg Address". We know this is the real Lincoln, because he has "Abraham Lincoln" right there on the bottom of his shoe.

The Museum authenticates everything...

The 2nd Federal Battalion

2008-03-01T06:37:00.006-05:00

My first foray into the world of Civil War Reenacting was, a few years ago while living in Ohio, with the 2nd Federal Battalion (Reinforced). Made up primarily of the 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, Co. D and the 4th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Co. B. It was a great, great experience for me... and after we made the move here to Southeast Michigan in January of '05, after getting the utilities turned on and the kids enrolled in school, our next priority was to find a local CW reenacting group. All four of us now are happily and much involved with the 21st Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co. H. Be sure to check out our website at http://21stmichigan.org/

I joined the 2nd as a battalion staff officer, their chaplain - a 1st Lieutenant. Major Steve Reincke, Captain Shawn Farkas and 1st Sergeant Rick Williams, pictured here, were wonderful mentors and good friends. These images were taken at my very first event in late summer of '04, at Caesar's Creek Pioneer Village, between Dayton and Cincinnati. If you can't see their ranks, Steve is wearing boots, Shawn has the long dark mullet and mustache and Rick the long blonde hair and goatee (he also portrays a wonderful General George Custer).

Captain Erv Rock is the military commander of the 21st. The 21st is a member of the Cumberland Guard... an umbrella organization of regiments from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. The Cumberland Guard is a brigade... made up of battalions... there is a Cumberland Guard battalion, as well.

Me mum...

2008-02-26T21:12:00.003-05:00

After posting the pictures of the five generations of Gillett men, old pal Will Finn urged me to post one of my mother, Gloria Payne Gillett as well.

This photograph of Ma is of her at fifty... the same age I am now! Both a very, very surreal and sobering concept.

Ma passed away when she was just fifty-five (ditto on the surreal and sobering thing)... over twenty-two years ago now. As far as I know, this is the first time a picture of her has been put on the ultra-futuristic internet! She died long before such science-fiction became common everyday fact. Ma was addicted to the telephone and the C.B. radio. I would well imagine that if she were alive today, she'd have a couple of email addresses, her own weblog or two, be on MySpace and Facebook both, and would IM constantly... and a BlackBerry to boot. She'd be a near eighty year old techno-nerd!

I don't remember growing older, when did they?

2008-02-26T19:55:00.018-05:00

...Wasn't it yesterday,

When they were small?

My adult daughters. The two things in my life that I am most proud of. The two things in my life that both confronts me with my own mortality and comforts me with my own immortality.

This '70s Show

2008-02-26T17:59:00.005-05:00

Okay. I admit it. I've seen "That '70s Show". But I've not liked it. It isn't believable. It isn't realistic or authentic - in the least bit. And the hair... except for the guy with the 'fro, Hyde, I think it is... is all wrong. This guy should have been cast. He looks like he could be from the seventies. And this hot girl... now, she looks like she could be from the seventies. And I could believe they met and fell in love. Not like what's-their-names, Donna and Eric?

The Lincoln-Douglass Debates

2008-02-25T19:19:00.009-05:00

OK, so the debates weren't between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. But the headline is too good to have passed up with the posting of this "image" of the two together. I can't resist such things.

This photograph wasn't taken of Lincoln and Douglass at either of their meetings at the White House during the Civil War. I took it in the summer of 2005 at Historic Fort Wayne in Detroit, Michigan. Fred Priebe here portrays President Lincoln. No, I take that back. Fred is Abraham Lincoln. In the extended Civil War Reenacting community there are some who chose to present historical figures in the first person. Some might be easier to portray lesser familiar men of the time such as, I don't know, Thaddeus Stevens. Lincoln is a challenge. And one that Fred successfully meets.

We have a set-in-stone preconceived image of Lincoln. From photographs and statues and a plethora of books to movies and television.... and President's Day Sale fliers. And even pennies and five dollar bills have given us an idea in our collective minds of what to expect from (a) Lincoln. Fred Priebe doesn't disappoint. It takes more than being "lanky" with a mustache-less beard and a stove-pipe hat. It takes more than memorizing and regurgitating the "Gettysburg Address". In any good portrayal... of any figure... you need to become the character. Fred (I need to be honest here. I never, ever, have called him "Fred" to his face... even when it is just the two of us, away from the public, it is always "Mr. President"... and will always be)... is a student of Lincoln as much as he is a teacher of Lincoln. He probably knows more about the President than he or his contemporaries did. I wrote last month the 21st Michigan's newsletter that would I be able to travel back to the time of the Civil War, I'd likely pass on meeting Lincoln. Because of Fred Priebe, I know I would be disappointed in the real President! He would be a pale imitation of Fred! The beard is his own, so he never has the luxury of ever being totally out of character. I imagine in Home Depot in blue jeans and a t-shirt, he is asked, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Abraham Lincoln?"

I'd like to share a quick story about Fred and a testimony to the realness of his Lincoln. Rosalia, a little girl - then five or six - in our reenacting unit, knew Fred only as Abraham Lincoln from her family's involvement in reenacting and friendship with Fred. One day, Rosalia and her father were watching a program on PBS or the History Channel about Booth's assassination of Lincoln. Suddenly, it hit her all at once, and she looked up at her father and, with tears in her eyes, said, "They killed Mr. Lincoln!?" To her, Abraham Lincoln is Fred Priebe. And she thought he had been shot.

Check out his website at http://alincolnstyle.com/ Fred does much more that attend Civil War Reenactments. His calendar is full and impressive. And I would be remiss to not mention his bride, Bonnie, does a terrific job at his side as Mary Todd Lincoln!

I regret to say that I don't know the man who portrays the great Frederick Douglass, though I have seen him many, many times. I will find out and make amends and correct this post as soon as I can. But too, like Fred, standing and talking with this gentleman, I feel as if I have actually met Frederick Douglass.

Here is the same picture without the tweaking and antiquing of Print Shop.

A Dip in the Gene Pool...

2008-02-20T18:25:00.010-05:00

Five Generations of Gillett Men

I've done this for no-one's enjoyment but my own.

From top to bottom:

My great great grandfather
Orvill C. Gillett
(1838-1912), here in his early 60s

My great grandfather
Homer Gillett
(1865-1924), here in his mid 30s

My grandfather
Orville C. Gillett
(1891-1983), here in his early 50s

My father
LaVerne O. Gillett
(1924-2002), here in his mid 50s

And, finally, me
Michael D. Gillett
here in my mid 30s

More Memories...

2008-02-20T09:09:00.003-05:00

While a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, I didn't stay at the dorms at Duquesne University. I suppose about half the students did. There was a dorm too, for guys only, in Oakland-Shadyside, I think. There were some students who lived at home and commuted. I remember a few had pretty long commutes... distances like from Washington to the south and Butler to the north. Some had apartments.

I lived in Swissvale and, later, in Squirrel Hill. Both were on the east side. Some eight and five miles away from school, respectively. I would take the bus and if memory serves, the 61b was my route. You'd have to buy a monthly PAT Bus pass and if the distance traveled was so much or if you had to transfer or if you took an express, you would have to throw in a dime as well. There were times I didn't have the dime and so started off early walking towards "dahntahn" where the school was (and is, but now at a different location). I'd look along the sidewalk, as I walked, and the gutter for an errant dime or if it wasn't my lucky day, I would have to walk far enough that I could finally ride the bus by just flashing my pass.

Most of us didn't have much money. I was no different. I think my budget for the week was five bucks. That included the twice-daily dimes, lunches and art supplies. I went of to Pittsburgh in early September that first year weighing 220 pounds and by the time I went home for Thanksgiving, I was down to something like 165. My folks thought I had cancer. It took me a while to convince them - especially my mom - that it was just the "poor art student" diet.

I didn't have breakfasts. Dinner was usually a hot dog. And lunch was a can of Coke and a small bag of fries from "Hardee's". I picked "Hardee's" because they had catchup bottles right on the tables so you could use as much as you wanted (hey, I needed whatever vegetables I could get). Or, if I was flush, and didn't need any art supplies for a project, I feasted. A toasted bagel from "George Aikens", slathered generously with butter so that it sloughed off and filled the bottom of the wax bag (hey, I needed whatever dairy I could get)... or for a real treat, the kid's meal at "Roy Rogers" - a chicken leg, small fries (in a very cool cardboard holster that would fit nicely on your belt), small drink and a prize (as if the sweet holster wasn't enough!).

Some times I'd have hot dogs for lunch too. "Wiener World" was just down the street from the art supply store. If I had money left over from buying supplies (or had convinced myself that I could mooch some press-type off from a buddy), I go on to "Wiener World" for a dog. Great hog dogs, little bit money and it was a lot of fun watching the Wagnerian gal behind the counter pick up the hot dogs off the grill with her bare hands. I figured that the heat would have killed any errant bacteria on her calloused mitts.

Most of us were forced to be frugal when it came to buying art supplies. An expensive brush was the one luxury. After that, we'd reuse our cover-stock again and again, cutting it down until it was too small to be of any further use. We'd buy illustration board in quarters (though ultimately it was more economic to buy a full or half sheet and cut it ourselves, but few had that much money at one time). A quarter sheet was 10x15, a half was 15x20 and a full sheet was 20x30. Cold press for pencil and watercolors and the like, and then hot press for paste-up and pen and ink stuff. Cold was a rough, "toothed" surface and hot was a smooth surface.

We'd buy color markers and tubes of paint one or two at a time, project by project. We'd share with others in the same rocking economic boat. By graduation, we might have a pretty full set. Of course, by that time, the first ones were running dry.

We'd have to take some of our stuff to a nearby stat-house either for reduced or enlarged photostatic copies. This was before computers and all of it's inexpensive modern miracles and conveniences. I forget how much it cost, but I imagine I had fries for lunch those weeks.

Borgman, Priggee, Kirk & Co.

2008-02-19T19:25:00.008-05:00

Briefly, I'd like to highlight a few more personally influential editorial cartoonists... from the top, Jim Borgman (Cincinnati Enquirer), Milt Priggee (then, Spokane Spokesman-Review) and Kirk Walter (Toledo Blade). Some of the best cartoonists in the biz and some of the nicest guys. There's still a boatload to follow... so check back.

The top doodle of Bill Clinton is enlarged from the front of Jim's book "Disturbing the Peace"; a collection of his editorial stuff (Jim also does a little comic strip called "Zits"). He drew this along side his autograph ("To Mike - with admiration and warm wishes to a fellow inker in the Ohio cartoon trenches, Jim Borgman"). Like Will, Jim's doodles and sketches are to be envied and coveted.

The middle panel is an enlarged and cropped signed original from Milt. The neat thing with originals, is that you can get a great close-up look at the pen and brush work, that the printed cartoon doesn't allow. The look on this Soviet general's face is priceless, and I love the touch of the hat and it's placement!

Finally, the final panel is of another signed original, this one Kirk gave me, also enlarged and cropped. I will never, ever, attempt to draw Karl Marx - because I can't even come close to Kirk's Marx. So why bother!? This is so darned beautiful and I stare at it longingly like some guys look at a centerfold. Okay, I'll just go ahead and say it; I lust after Kirk's Marx, okay?! Those eyes... that brow... that beard... oh, baby!

Anyway, besides there stuff, these cartoonists are nice folk. Once, I sat next to Jim Borgman at aNCS chapter dinner. As we ate, Jim and I were speaking and Jim made reference to "we" cartoonists as he motioned indicating he and me. That is one of the best gifts anyone has ever given me!

On a few occasions, I spoke with Milt on the phone... picking his brain and trying to absorb his talent through the long distance telephone lines... never once did Milt act like I was bothering him or that he had a thousand other things to do. And I am sure I did and he did.

And I went up to Toledo (back when Toledo was "up" and not "down") to see Kirk in his studio at the Blade. I figured I'd grab an hour and show him my stuff, and pick his brain (and see if maybe I would have better luck absorbing his talent by being in the same room) and then hit the road. "Nah," he said on the phone, "you've got a long drive. Come up early and spend the day! Make it worth your while!" So I spent the day sitting at his elbow and watching him draw his weekly "Maumee Dearest". Later, when it hit the wire services that my editorial cartoons for the Marion Star and the Delaware Gazette won me a first place in both Division I and Division II, in the Ohio Associated Press Awards (the first year I was "professional"), Kirk faxed me a nice note of congratulations early that day! Again, another great gift!

Real-time Friendships

2008-02-19T18:24:00.010-05:00

Lest you think I spend all my time "Living in the Past", and that the only friends I have are from the 1860s and the 1970s, and are either reenactors or cartoonists, here are a couple of pictures of some of my best, modern day, friends. On the top is Ron Windmiller and the bottom picture is of Jeff Moore (here doing his best Popeye).

Jeff is one of the pastors and Ron one of the deacons at church (http://www.ridgewoodchurch.org/), here in suburban Detroit. When we came to Michigan from Ohio, I had a handful of battle scars and a couple of open sores (admittedly more than a few were from me picking at the scabs). Jeff and Ron were quick to befriend me and, while they were accepting of me where I was at, they were also eager (and helpful) in having me heal and to grow and move on. When Karen was diagnosed with breast cancer two and a half years ago, Ron and Jeff were even quicker to minister to us all.

And both are very tolerant of my obsession with the music of Jethro Tull...

More Pittsburgh Pics...

2008-02-19T16:16:00.009-05:00

Here are the last couple of pictures from my days at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh... yet another graduation pic with the aforementioned AiP president, John A. Johns. The aforementioned Bob Sallows stands at the podium in the foreground with the not-before-mentioned John Winberg sitting to his left.

Then following are three more pictures of Will Finn, Ray McAnallen and myself... cutting up in the school hallway. The poor, sweet, young lady, Ray and Will are harassing, is Debbie (I won't give her last name... I don't want to embarrass her any more than I have already by posting her picture). She had an unfinished roll of film in her camera and was looking to waste it. And we were more than happy to help her!

Jeff Stahler, et al.

2008-02-17T13:11:00.007-05:00

I will dedicate other posts to other cartoonists that have left impressions upon me and influence my style. There are a bunch. But briefly, I'd like to give a heartfelt nod to Jeff Stahler. And to tell you of a decades long game of musical drawing boards - in a world of infinite cartoonists and finite full-time positions.

Jeff, besides being a great guy, is a terrific cartoonist. I've known Jeff and his work probably since the early 80's in Columbus, Ohio. Jeff is another graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design. Jeff's stuff appeared regularly in Columbus Monthly Magazine in those days. Which you could say that was because he was also the art director. But I wouldn't... his work deserved to be there regardless. That was the only reason I ever bought the magazine. Later I was so eager, after Jeff left, to have my stuff in Columbus Monthly, I gave it away.

Later, Jeff became the editorial cartoonist at the old Columbus Citizen-Journal. Some years later, when the C-J closed its doors and Columbus became yet another single-daily city, Jeff ended up in Cincinnati at the old Cincinnati Post. Jim Borgman was, and is, at the Cincinnati Enquirer. What a lucky city. Well, except for having Marge Schott and Jerry Springer too...

After many years, the Post too folded and Cincinnati too joined the now long list of single-daily cities. The Columbus Dispatch, eager to grab Jeff (Jeff is editorial stuff is widely syndicated and his panel "Moderately Confused" appears in like a zillion papers as well), but not wanting to rudely push Jim Larrick, who had been there for quite a few years, into the unemployment office, quickly and conveniently found a place for him, as editorial cartoonist, at their large chain of Columbus suburban weeklies.

Where I just happened to be at, and had been for maybe ten years, working as freelancer. So, the music stopped and I was out of the game. And I couldn't be happier for Jeff. If I was to be bumped - and it is all part of the business, albeit here somewhat indirectly, I am glad it was to someone I know, admire and respect. Jeff and his family get to stay in Ohio... and I get to see Jeff's work all the time...

S'more stuff...

2008-02-17T11:06:00.004-05:00

Some of my stuff...

2008-02-16T15:51:00.005-05:00