This old house …is gonna be the death of me

 

Two plumbing project going on – one somewhat urgent and  hitting lots of obstacles but I’m getting it done, the other less urgent but already is mild disaster stages. So I have thus turned a three bathroom house into , one functional shower/tub!

I miss my Reese house some days. Even though much older than my Olive Branch house, I had lived there so long that I knew it to the bones and how to repair /maintain.  Of course after making my first visit to my old Poplar-Highland Kroger a couple  weeks ago and seeing armed guards checking receipts of customers leaving…well, I think I’ll stay in Mississippi.

But back to plumbing. Spurred by the falling of the giant oak summer before last, I have having to re-route a drainage pipe which runs 85’ from the house to what was the middles of cow pasture 40 years ago and is now part of my yard. I had never been able to find the outlet of said drain pipe before the tree fell and the clearing crew removed a sizable portion as thicket as well as part of the tree (the rest remains as a large and  intriguing lawn ornament). Well, said exposed pipe has created a mini mudhole such  that my Kubota zero turn got tuck this summer and I had to pull it out with the pick up truck. Thus I am now adding 100’ more of pipe to get the water to an actual drainage ditch. It would be about 70” as the crow flies, but by needing to zig and zag around the big tree and some stumps , it is just over 100’.

I would have done this earlier in the year but wouldn’t you know I am working some sort of damn event just about every weekend; I need to get this done before winter so I spent this weekend on it and took a vacation day today.

I am running  100’ of 2” PVC. My experience hereto fore with PVC pip has been sink traps and about a 3’ run in the attic to fix a leak in the HVAC. This job probably should have gone to a contractor but here I am  - about half as handy as my dad but probably three-quarters as stubborn as my mom so naturally I am going to try it.

This weekend I marked off the course with the best slope for water drainage with stake and string. Because the variance on an angle can make a small mistake a big problem, I went further and laid out 100” of PVC to see exactly where to dig. Sounds simple and it is btu that took the better part of two days.

Today, I thought the implementation would be simple because I reserved a trenching machine from Home Depot. Had the machine worked, I would be done with the trenching in an hour. But the first machine was broken (noted before I left the parking lot) and the second had a start problem (noted after I hauled in home behind my car on small trailer hoping not to get run over). So I dug it by hand using a pick, an ax (after I broke my 20 year chain saw on roots) , and a shovel and that only took six hours. Well, the 80” I finished took six, I still have a bit more to go.

Someone is going to say did you call before you dig? One of the broken trenchers at HD was broken because someone hit a gas line and it caught fire. Ouch.  Well, no I did not because I didn’t have to. I know that this spot has been nothing but cow pasture since 1940 when my grandfather bought the land and the only thing I might find would be some old barbed wire (which I did) and, of course, fire ants (a couple of which crawled up by boot, socks and pantleg to bit my knee. I did use his ax to cut some tree roots, the same ax he always kept in his pickup truck bed behind the spare tire.

The weather was fairly temperate – but humid – and the ground reasonably soft, and while I am tired and sore , very sore, I got it done.

Plumbing project #2 however is very nearly at the point where I call a plumber. I am less worried about the price than the ridicule…but then again, this one is less time sensitive and I will probably try to fix it a time or tow or three more. Did I mention that I inherited mother’s stubborn streak?!

This is far more than you want to know about my day  but I thought it would be a distraction from the election. Anyone that wants to help di out that remaining 20’ tomorrow night and not watch TV is most welcome.

 

Emerging Leaders of a World in Flux: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , Chiang Kai-shek, and Benito Mussolini

 

The post-World War I world saw major changes. The fall of the Ottoman Empire – once a great power and later the “sick man of Europe” – saw the partition of the Middle East , independence of other territories, and a redefinition of Turkey by Mustafa Kemel Ataturk (1881-1938).  China, ancient and formidable for centuries until later pillaged by colonial powers and plagued by warlords, emerged into nationhood first under Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) and later Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975). The Italian peninsula united at a nation in 1861 from the post -Roman centuries of foreign rule and competing city-states. Italy scrambled to find its place among modern nations with among other things a disastrous attempt at colonial expansion into Africa. Political opportunist Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) rallied the Italian people.

It may be an oversimplification to say that each of these stepped into a vacuum, but it is fair to say that these countries were in a radical state of change with no clear path forward and great anxiety among the populations.

The Ottoman Empire existed from 1299 to 1922. The long and complex history was marked by conquest, often religion-fueled. Like erstwhile adversary Russia, it was an absolute monarchy (sultanate) and often anachronistic. Ataturk’s accomplishment was to create the secular Republic of Turkey and work toward modernization. Modern Turkey has been an ally of the West from the Korean War to the present as well as trading partner.

China was united as an imperial state in 221 BC and various dynasties continued until the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. There was trade with the Roman empire and the creation of a rich cultural history.  Chinese fleets were involved in trade from East Africa to Japan and beyond during the Ming dynasty.  In the 19^th century western powers negatively  impacted China (Opium War 1840)  and unlike the Japanese, the Chinese did not modernize and did not fare well in opposing the West. The 1912 Republic was beset with problems including regional warlords. Chiang Kai-shek managed to contain these and bring Western style reforms to military and government. Fighting both the Japanese and Mao’s communists, Chiang was beleaguered for much of his time on the mainland before retreating to Taiwan in 1949.

A newspaperman Mussolini had leftist political leanings early on but managed nonetheless to become the father of Fascism. He led Italy from 1922 to 1943 and was executed by  Italian partisans in 1945. His chief objective was to unite the Italian people who for centuries self-identified by region, city, and ethnicity. He is famously said to have “made the trains run on time” but more impactful was his work on a spirit of nationalism by engaging in a series of small wars in the 1930s. He did not join the Axis in WWII hostilities until June of 1940 having originally stated a non-belligerent status in 1939.

Three very different personalities with one common denominator of establishing (or redefining) a national identity. In ordinary times the defining of national identity can be fairly nuanced by pop culture, elections, the emergence of technology, and less decisive events than world wars or radical changes in governmental structure but the 1920s were anything but ordinary.

More importantly national leaders must be judged in no small part by how well their people fared.  

The Italians suffered the strain of being nearly constantly at war - Libya, Ethiopia, Albania, and then the later world wide conflict. Accordingly Mussolini was viewed as hero, buffoon, and albatross at various times - finally the Italians themselves had enough and hanged him. 

Turkey under Ataturk by contrast brought emancipation to women, an organized government, trade & industry, a new education systems &  scores of new schools, and more. He is remembered 80 years later in the words of the current president with "eternal respect".

Chiang's China is a mixed bag.   His accomplishments include land reforms, reining in the warlords,  and some economic development. Beset by wars -   some foisted upon him, some chosen - he was "building the ship while sailing the ship" in setting up a more modernized country in the midst of that chaos. The retreat to Taiwan in 1949 ended the experiment on the mainland, but created a thriving economy on the island.  Mao's communist country is now the world's second largest economy due in large part to massive manufacturing & exporting... a kind of capitalism. I wonder would the Generalissimo would think about that?!

Fossil Fuel and Bequests, Climate Change and Fundraising

You may have heard a little chatter about fossil fuels contributing to global warming. There might be something to it. If you are old enough, you remember the oil embargo of the 1970s and if older still, gas rationing during WWII. Clearly the supply of petroleum products will eventually be outstripped by demand. The Jetsons need to hurry up with producing those flying cars!

Meanwhile, for those nonprofit fundraisers with the energy to read this after the Giving Day posting frenzy, a word of caution of about well-rounded revenue sources. Previously I probably mentioned the danger of grant dependency. With one, three, or five year life cycles and the temptation of mission drift, there is a danger of creating programs and projects that are not sustainable. I would also admonish about dependency on corporate support , but we are all only too well aware that it is drying up.

So back to fossil fuels and fundraising. If your non-profit is heavily dependent upon bequests, estate gifts, and memorials, you need to be making new friends and well as remembering the old ones at a rate of 3:1 (source: National Association of Made Up Numbers -- but still a pretty good guess). No more dinosaurs are giving their lives for your petroleum reserve confidence. No more sweet little old people -- I say this as I eagerly approach Medicare eligibility -- are suddenly appearing on your donor roster with an intent to donate for 20+ years. Bequests come from long term relationships not one night stands (just in case there is anyone I have not offended yet).

Donors are not numbers or commodities despite our abnormal love of databases and spreadsheets. Donors are people who have interests, emotions, and a need to interact. Donors are courted, crops are cultivated. Everyone gets tired of being asked for money; people like being asked to volunteer, advise, meet the front line staff, and engage in meaningful ways.

Best of luck on surviving year-end fundraising. If you think you may not survive, I can send you our planned giving brochure...but we hope you feel better!

Arrivederci Roma

So do you think that one day in 476 AD (CE for my progressive but misguided friends) the Goths rolled into Rome, sacked the place, had everyone hang up their togas and started speaking German within a week or so? Not so much.

Let's go back to 69 AD aka the Year of the Four Emperors. This is the first - but not the last -- civil war in the newish (27 BC) Roman Empire. We have the Year of the Five Emperors in 169 AD and it just goes on with disagreements, power grabs, and wars pitting legion against legion, literally bleeding the strength of the nation.

As legions diminished their ranks were supplemented by non-Romans and then replaced by entire foreign armies as mercenary forces.

Alaric , the kind of the Goths, who sacked Rome in 410 had long served in the Roman military under Theodoius, mainly fighting the forces of usurpers.

Fast forward

In 1204 the Fourth Crusade was on the way to the Holy Land from western Europe but made a detour to Constantinople, seat of the still standing Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire . The pillage and destruction of the seat of Orthodox Christianity by Catholic Christians forever weakened the city so that in 1453 it finally fell to the Ottoman Turks.

Next stop North America

You will recall -- as apparently a paltry few current 8th graders now know -- that the French & Indian War was not a conflict pitting French soldiers against Native Americans. It was the French vs the English in 1754 with some tribes siding with the English and others siding with the French (incidentally the larger world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years Wars was fought globally from India to North America to Europe).

Back to Italy

About the time the Mexicans were defeating a French army fighting for a Hapsburg emperor (Cinqo de Mayo) and Jefferson Davis was having terse talk with Abraham Lincoln, the Italians were just getting together. Yes, Italy as a country was only founded in 1861 under Garibaldi. For several hundred years prior the competing city-states - Milan, Florence, Venice, etc - fought each other and were at various times under the control of France, Spain, and others.

So what

What is the common thread? Division within invites conquest from outside.

Do you really want to have to learn to speak Chinese?

It is troubling that left- right, progressive- conservative, urban- rural, etc can't seem to agree on anything at all, but part of that (not all but part) is from an unwillingness to even try. How do you think this will play out in the long run?

P.S. In Rome under Odoacer who deposed the last child emperor in 476 and declared himself king of Italy, some things went on as usual -- the Roman senate continued, coinage, even the Latin language. Many changes were gradual but the movement toward instability and lack of security accelerated over time.

A Museum Without A Gift Shop

Of all of the kings who reigned in Mesopotamia the  name which probably comes to mind most readily is Nebuchadnezzer II  (reign 605 – 562 BC) of Chaldean Babylon.  

Oh sure there is a lot of be said for Sargon of Akkad (reign 2334-2279 BC ) and legal minds will lean toward Hammurabi (reign 1792-1750 BC) of Amorite Babylon, but the widest recognition comes in no small part due to the good work of  generations of Sunday School teachers and Nebuchadnezzer's conquest of Judah, Daniel in the lion’s den,  the fiery furnace temporarily occupied by  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and then of course eating grass for a few years.

What you might not know is that Nebuchadnezzer built probably the first history museum.  Babylon was just re-emerging after years of Assyrian domination and needed an extreme makeover. The new king got right to work – new temple to Marduk the hometown deity, really nice hanging gardens, and a museum among other things.

The museum was dedicated to the history of previous cultures in Mesopotamia of which many had come and gone since the Sumerians basically invented writing around 3,500 BC.  It had statuary, cuneiform tablets, pottery, but oddly no gift shop as far as we know.

This is probably a good time to take a quick look at your sundial or calendar.  Where are we on the timeline of familiar world history?  Fall of Troy about 1,200ish BC, Romulus founds Rome around 715 BC but the city does not rid itself of Etruscan kings until around 509,  the Peloponnesian War runs 431-404 BC, the Zhou Dynasty is running things in China during the reign of Nebuchadnezzer, the Olmecs are winding down in Mesoamerica, and the Buddha aka  Siddartha Gautama in born in 563 in Nepal. Got it? Okay.

What happened before 3,500 BC? A lot but we don’t know as much because pre-history is generally defined as the time before written language. There were surely permanent settlements, agricultural and trade economic systems, spoken languages, etc but the documentation of this come more from archeologists than anthropologists.

NOTA BENE: Just because people lived in cultures without written language doesn’t mean they weren’t intelligent. Are you smarter than a 5^th grader? I hope so.   Are you smarter than someone who lived in 1927, 1834, 1061, 235, or 321 BC?   You undoubtedly have a great deal more knowledge of all sorts of things, but are you wiser, more complex emotionally, better at using available resources, a better problem solver, or more content?  Not necessarily.

But back to the museum.  If we talk about history from 3,500 BC (or BCE, we can discuss that another time) to the midpoint of Nebuchadnezzer’s reign, say 584, that is 2,916 years.  The range from 584 to 2023 is only 1,439 years. True, with steam powering the industrial revolution, the transatlantic cable connecting Europe and American via telegraph and then telephone, the electric light bulb, radio & television, air flight then space slight, and the internet, the rate of change of the past 250 years alone is staggering.  Even so we are all products of our time.

Our time, perhaps a bit more than three score and ten now with modern medicine, is still a blip in a 5,523 timeline (add several more thousand for pre-history living if you really want to feel itty bitty tiny in the grand scheme).

So bravo Nebuchadnezzer and all the subsequent history and natural history museum curators and supporters down through the ages. It is important to be present and live in the moment, but there is so very much to be learned from the past.

How I Learned to Appreciate Elvis Week...in Iowa

I grew up in Olive Branch (family farm and church) and Whitehaven (Harding Academy at Hwy 51 & Holmes then SBEC on Tulane). Every so often on the AM radio a new Elvis song would come out and that was kind of cool. I was doing Algebra I homework (7th grade , a momentary prodigy for math but that soon passed) at home one afternoon when the news came that Elvis had passed away. It was sad of course but not a surprise. Trips to Methodist South and health peril had been broadcast before.

The mourning of fans worldwide was no surprise either.  Some people reading this will still have a copy of the Commercial Appeal or Press Scimitar with giant headlines or perhaps tickets to the concert that wasn't to be. The renaming of Highway 51 as Elvis Presley Blvd was kind of an eye opener - this sort of thing wasn't done much in those days. The plot to steal the body from the cemetery was and is just bizarre. By moving the gravesite to Graceland the seed of an idea for a tourist attraction was born and oh how it has grown. The amazing growth and decades long staying power of Elvis Week with all the panels, activities, and candlelight vigil is something of a headscratcher for locals. At one time Bab Bob's/Vapors hosted an Elvis impersonator contest (naturally a fine young Baptist never actually visited such a place but you heard about that); this has been replaced by tribute artists from around the world who compete in preliminaries and prestigious finals...and has spawned feeder contests on multiple continents (much like the International Blues Challenge). Later, in my 40s, I had the opportunity to emcee a preliminary a preliminary night  at the Hard Rock on Beale and really enjoyed it. Generally, locals appreciate the tourists, the tourist dollars, and the mainly positive press for the city. Graceland , now with the Graceland Guest House and more, is superbly managed. Fans of all ages -- from 80somethings to teens -- continue to come. 

I have never been to the Candlelight Vigil. I wouldn't mind seeing it,  but do I want to somehow intrude on  what is a meaningful and emotional experience for many thousands of visitors. And I have no intention of going to poke fun as some locals have in past; that is simply not respectful.

My compact vacation this summer took me on a drive of over nine hours through the heartland of America which boasts both arch-conservative billboards and clean energy-producing wind turbines by the score. My aim was Davenport, Iowa for a traditional jazz festival which is an exceedingly rare commodity.  Most jazz festivals these days - not there are many - throw together a mix of straight ahead jazz with a dose of smooth jazz and some older pop stars and possibly a hat tip to hot jazz somewhere down the bill. NOTA BENE: there is a bit of a distinction, in my opinion anyway, between Dixieland and Hot Jazz, mainly in terms of performance style and repertoire rather than instrumentation. I chalk this up to regional influences from jazz centers of New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, and New York. Okay, I am already putting some of you to sleep, but remember that the name of this blog is But I Digress!

Anyway back to the road trip and the destination: Davenport, Iowa, the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River. From Memphis just drive to Moline , IL and hang a left.  Why Davenport? Simply put the Bix Fest is named for Bix Beiderbecke, cornet phenom and local son who lived from 1903-1931. The flame of talent burnt itself out with an able assist from too much alcohol.  This summer was the 51st annual festival for hot jazz and it was held in the ballroom of a casino resort hotel.  The year-end, hand-addressed solicitation letter for the non-profit festival cited 800 attendees. Not to quibble but I think they meant 800 attendees at various events over four days NOT 800 unique attendees; my event producer eye says something more akin to 200ish unique individual attendees...and that might include festival volunteers. Nonetheless the music was superb beyond measure. The dozen or so bands, all of whom played multiple sets and whose members occasionally co-mingled to form new, smaller groups, did not come for a big paycheck.  Bands were in fact sponsored by donors, mainly individuals, and they stayed in a modest Quality Inn* about five miles from the casino. 

The bands, tribute artists if you will, were as much enjoying themselves as were the audience members. The locals with whom I interacted fell into one of two categories: ardent volunteers handling all sorts of tasks or curious but friendly people who had never attended but knew of the event. 

There was a morning small group performance at the graveside of Bix. As one of the younger festival attendees at age 60, I can assure you that none of us needed to be driving at night along the winding paths into the cemetery for a candlelight anything!

I cannot say for certain that the Bix Fest is the largest annual event in Davenport, but I will say that  it is treated with respect and affection by the locals...just as I try to treat Elvis Week.

Anyway I ponied up the $25 annual membership for the Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Society without hesitation knowing  that I may or may not be up to making that long drive ever again. I loved the grassroots appeal of the letter which also asked recipients to consider donating frequent flyer points to defray travel expenses for the bands. 

How many more years can the Bix Fest go on? How many more years for Elvis Week? No one knows, but whatever your passion or interest, embrace it. I talked about going to Bix Fest for four years before ever going. Two lessons for me: (1) you have support things that you want to see survive and (2) things that are not your cup of tea are probably someone else's great passion and deserve respect. 

I am toying with the idea of a cruise on the Danube next year originating in Budapest, but I am not sure it will be as memorable as Iowa. 

* A word about the "modest" Quality Inn. The owner/manager , an Indian gentleman named Mike, has the biggest heart of any five people you have ever met. He is outside on the motel patio from 11pm-1 am on the Friday night of the festival grilling hamburgers and hot dogs for the festival musicians (festival performers, fans, locals, all welcome) who are rollicking in a jam session with an ebb and flow of musicians that is a sheer delight almost impossible to describe. You pretty much need to drive to Iowa to experience it. See you there. 

There was no Renaissance in Russia

 There was no Renaissance or Reformation per se in Russia. At the ascension of Peter the Great (1682-1725), the main garments were medieval robes, women of the royal family were kept locked in towers, literacy was barely existent and contact with other countries shunned. Russian forces of that era were mauled by Ottomans and Swedes. There was no northern seaport. Serfdom, flogging, death by impalement or any number of similarly gruesome methods was common. Russia lost the Crimean War in 1856 to England, France, and the Ottomans. Fast forward to 1904 and Russia is trounced by Japan. The revolution in 1917 takes place partly because of the incompetent leadership during WWI. The Soviet Union won WWII by a combination of attrition and scorched earth, brawn over brain. Post war Europe, the Iron Curtain, and Cold War are within memory for many.

Economics and innovation has never been a strong suit. Military expansion to take ever more territory and resources has (as Rome did to maintain bread & circuses, this is a pyramid scheme of an economy).

“We must invade to protect our ethnic kindred there” – Hitler to the Sudetenland in 1938, Putin in Ukraine 2022. The premise is to quietly colonize by building up population. It is a very old tactic really.

Ronald Reagan defeated the Evil Empire by managing an arms race that Russia could not afford.

Unlike China which went to brutal Marxism under Mao to a pseudo capitalism, Russia still did not manage to get an economy going after the breakup of the Soviet Union. If you suddenly got rid of all the Chinese made goods in your home, closet, and garage, it might be quite bare. What Russian made items do you own?

Putin needs Ukraine for the resources to be sure, but moreso for his egomaniacal pride. He is unbalanced and evil. He is also unchecked -- Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, Belarus election interference last year. The real question is where does he stop? Kiev? Bucharest? Vilnius? Warsaw? And also can/will anyone do anything of substance?