Destination: New Hampshire

 Book: Following Atticus: Eight Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship  (September 2011) by Tom Ryan

CONTEST IS CLOSED. NOTE: This is the continuing book club run by Edie Jarolim of Will My Dog Hate me. Win a signed copy of Following Atticus by commenting here, OR at Will My Dog Hate Me. Comment both places and get two entries.

Review by Rebecca Boren

I wish I knew which wise person said that one mark of a wonderful book is that each reader feels it was written specifically to him or her. In the three months since its publication, Following Atticus, a love letter to New Hampshire’s White Mountains and the two miniature schnauzers who transformed author Tom Ryan’s life, has already achieved best-seller status, gaining such accolades as “lyrical”, “heartwarming,” and “entertaining and joyous.” It’s been dubbed an instant regional classic, a worthy follower in the footsteps of such New England literary giants as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson– whom Ryan loves to quote.

Mt.. Washington New Hampshire

But I’m convinced Ryan wrote Following Atticus just for me.

• At the start of Following Atticus, Ryan is the owner, editor and sole employee of a muck-raking alternative newspaper in a small city on Massachusetts’ North Shore. I spent the first couple of decades of my working life shoveling dirt as a political and investigative reporter.
• I used to get away from it all by spending my vacations hiking or biking in the Swiss Alps or British countryside. Ryan learns about walking meditation while climbing New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
• Ryan falls more or less accidentally into life with an elderly rescued miniature schnauzer, then deliberately takes on the puppy who became Atticus Maxwell Finch. For years I saved miniature schnauzers for Arizona Schnauzer Rescue.
• Tom and Atticus’s breeder were both abused children. No further elaboration needed.
• And finally, when Ryan starts climbing mountains to raise money for charity, he hikes through the haze of pain, fatigue, and disability that comes with severe Lyme disease. As someone who daily frequently battles just to get out of bed courtesy of rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, I’m re-re-reading Following Atticus to see how he does that.

No wonder I love this book. Keep-by-my-bedside-and-give-inscribed –copies-to-everyone-on-my-Christmas-list love this book. It’s fun, it’s tender and frequently moving.

Following Atticus takes the classic literary form of the quest – both inner and outer. The hero, Tom Ryan — overworked, overweight, and overwhelmed at his newspaper — is saved from himself by those schnauzers. Atticus M. Finch, all 20 pounds of him, takes the role of faithful sidekick (only less a foolishly comic figure than many a Sancho Panza).

While Tom is controversial, even hated in certain circles, Atticus is loved from the moment he arrives in Newburyport as an 8-week-old 6-pound puppy. He covers meetings (and stays awake!) with Tom, wanders into the kitchen for treats at favorite restaurants, tours the city sitting in his special-order bicycle basket.

Within a couple of years, Atticus lures Tom away from the politics of Newburyport and into a world of long rural weekends, mountain hikes, and the rediscovery of the White Mountains, site of the family vacations that comprised Ryan’s few happy childhood memories.

In two successive winters between 2006 and 2008, the duo mounts a “Winter Quest” of climbing all 48 of New Hampshire’s mountains higher than 4,000 feet – twice each winter — for charity. Supporters donated money for each peak, first for cancer, then veterinary, research.

Mt. .Washington from Bretton Woods

Scaling the 96 peaks in one winter is grueling, daunting, and had only been done by a single other human climber. No dogs. (No worries, dog lovers. Tom takes elaborate measures to keep his best friend safe in the snow and ice.)

In tackling the mountains, though, Tom also tackles his greatest fears. In the cold, in the dark, exposed to the heights that terrify him, he confronts demons that have haunted him since his childhood of abuse and loss. “I’d decided to challenge myself and make myself stronger, to come face-to-face with who I was in those worst of elements and in an environment I’ve always feared, with the hope I’d emerge a bit different from when I went into it.”

It’s harder than he expected. Exposed on a freezing and gusty ridge, “I thought about how such weather can strip a man of hope and good sense and make him feel lonely and empty. I thought about how easy it would be to sit down and just stop moving through the wind and gloom…”

Then he looks ahead. “Little Atticus had taken the lead, strong gusts be damned, and was ducking his head and floppy ears into each gust, matching forward with a sideways catch – like John Wayne.”

Franconia Ridge Trail

Following Atticus’s third major character is New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Ryan pays tribute to these ancient peaks, which in the 19th century were the first wilderness to attract the attention and love of urban Americans. Hundreds of painters recorded the dramatic peaks and cliffs; major and minor authors recorded the history and lore of the ridges and valleys.

Tom fills a tiny rented cabin with the great New England existentialists, such as Emerson and Thoreau. In the service of his story, he quotes them, the poets Longfellow and Tennyson, the early environmental writers such as John Muir, even the mid-20th-century Christian apologists C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton.

It’s a kind of writing that is romantic in the best, lower-case “r” sense, where a beloved subject and style meld seamlessly, where the reader thinks “Of course!” when Tom compares himself to Frodo Baggins, and Atticus to Baggins’ faithful Sam. He captures such familiar sights as a beautiful sunny fall day with New England’s foliage in full color as well as those most of us will never see, like the undercast of an approaching blizzard snaking along a valley underneath a frozen ridge.

A recurring question in the book is whether Atticus is the perfect dog. “He’s perfect for me,” Ryan replies.

Is Following Atticus a perfect book? Nah. It takes some perseverance to follow the accounts of all those cold and dark winter hikes on mountain after seemingly indistinguishable mountain (referring to the end-paper map of the 4,000-footers helps.)

But it turned out to be a perfect book for me.

Note from Edie: Before she moved to Tucson and became a freelance writer, Rebecca Boren was a senior editor atThe Seattle Weekly and chief political reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  A former volunteer at Arizona Schnauzer Rescue, she rescued Frankie, the muse of  Will My Dog Hate Me. There we will discussing the book as it relates to the role of Atticus and his precursor mini-schnauzer, Max. I hope you’ll join us there too. But here at A Traveler’s Library, let’s talk about these questions:

Questions

Tom and his “Little Buddha?” find peace and wonder in the White Mountains, so much so that Tom eventually sells his newspaper so they can move to New Hampshire. Have you ever found a place that special to you?

Tom writes about the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts as a community divided against itself in every way imaginable – along lines of class, newcomer versus old-timer, gay versus straight, development versus historic preservation. Given that Tom was a controversial figure in “Cannibal City” why do you suppose so many people welcomed Maxwell Garrison Gillis, then Atticus Maxwell Finch, with such love and enthusiasm?

Tom has said that he wants to be the modern-day equivalent of the White Mountains painters, whose hundreds of works featuring the mountains brought tourists flocking to New Hampshire and contributed to the decision to rescue the mountains from clear-cut logging and the accompanying destruction. Does he succeed?

Disclaimers: The book cover is linked through Will My Dog Hate Me, an Amazon affiliate, which means that although it costs you no more to shop through that link, the affiliate earns a small percentage of anything you purchase. (And hey, it’s Christmas time, so go crazy!) Photos are used with permission from WikiCommons and from Flicker.com  Please click on each photo to learn more about the origins.

Next month’s Pet Travel Book Club will discuss Dog Walks Man: A Six-Legged Odyssey  by John Zeaman.
Click over to Will My Dog Hate Me for details, and a special deal from the publisher.

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Books and Play: The Belle of Amherst by William Luce; The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson; and a Recipe

You’ll forgive me if I’m a bit distracted, and offer you a blog post from last year, rewarmed. My excuse–I’m doing a final review of the galleys on a book that Charnell Havens and I wrote about Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma. Instead of Thanksgiving dinner, I’ll be stewing words. And if that isn’t bad enough, The Ohio State plays Michigan on Saturday. Go BUCKS!

Emily's Study, Amherst

Autumn makes me think of travel to New England, and New England makes me want to get out The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. In a former life, I played Emily in the play The Belle of Amherst,and ever since, I have been making the black cake she is making at the beginning of that play. I make it on Thanksgiving weekend, wrap it in cheesecloth dipped in brandy and serve it on Christmas Eve. (Cut the recipe in half or one-quarter if you must, but DO NOT call it a fruitcake.)

EMILY DICKINSON’S BLACK CAKE

as adapted by Vera Marie Badertscher

• 2 Pounds flour (8 cups)
• 2 pounds sugar (4 cups)
• 2 pounds butter (4 cups)
• 19 eggs
• 5 pounds raisins
• 1 1/2 pounds citron
• 1 1/2 pounds currents
• 1/2 pint brandy* (1 cup)
• 1/2 pint molasses (1 cup)
• 2 nutmegs (4-6 tablespoons, ground)
• 5 tablespoons total: cloves, mace, cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

* Emily says, “Not my father’s BEST brandy.”

Sift flour, soda, spices, salt.  Beat butter and sugar, add eggs a few at a time, beating after each addition.  Add brandy alternately with flour mixture.  Add molasses.  Sprinkle in fruit, slowly as you stir.
Bake at 250 degrees one and a half to three hours depending on the size of the pans you use. Full recipe makes one large “angel food cake” pan; plus 2-3 loaf pans.

Remove from pan to cool.  Wrap in cheesecloth dipped in brandy.  Store in air tight container for several weeks, dribbling on some more brandy from time to time.
Note: I have looked at other recipes on the Internet and immodestly believe this version is best. Slow baking and thorough basting are key.

The photo comes from Flickr under a Creative Commons License. Click on the image for more information.

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Sy Montgomery and the Good Good Pig

Destination: New Hampshire

Book: The Good, Good Pig:The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood, by Sy Montgomery.

Where would we be without librarians? While New England teems with good writing, going back to colonial days, I wanted something contemporary for our visit to New Hampshire.  Susan Reiner, a reader who lives in that state, contacted her local librarians and they suggested a book about a pig.

Should New Hampshirites be insulted? Heavens, no. Christopher Hogwood, star of this show, is a[amazonify]0345496094::text::::Good Good Pig[/amazonify]. While Montgomery educates us about the porcine life–

piglets gain as much as five pounds a day–

the book tells us about a lot of good, good people in the small town and among the community of people who cared about Christopher.

Pigs are generally turned into pork chops by the time they are six months, so she was not sure how long a well-cared for pig would live.

Sy Montgomery described in the Boston Globe as “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson” writes about animals and nature for magazines like National Geographic, crafts documentaries, and she writes books for children.  Her study of animals takes her to interesting places–far too interesting for the more timid traveler like me.  She travels to an area teeming with tigers in India, to the bug-ridden Amazon, and cavorts with elephants and emus in the wild.

Her training and her belief that she is more closely related to non-humans than to humans, makes her the perfect person to explain why we should love a pig–specifically the lovable Christopher. 

Much is made of the intelligence of pigs, but the author failed to convince me.

Pigs have roughly the same intelligence as dogs.

Yes, he is an escape artist. Montgomery and the girls next door catalogue the various sounds he makes and believe that he greets different people with different tones and types of communication.

Montgomery and her husband, both writers, live on a property with a barn, although it is not a full-fledged farm.  The have a flock of chickens, called the Ladies, and soon after Christopher arrives they adopt an injured border collie. That is the limit of their livestock.

A bunch of pigs is called a drift.

Although the book concentrates on describing animals,human and otherwise, rather than dwelling on the landscape, Montgomery’s way with words brings us poetic treats like this:

It was the last day of August–an achingly beautiful, golden day when the air throbbed with cricket song and buzzed with dragonfly wings and smelled like ripening apples.

She writes with a directness and charm that seem just perfect when talking about small town New Hampshire–whose name, after all, starts with ham. Christopher, like his owner, is a vegetarian–but for a different reason (Sorry, you’ll have to read the book!)

Thanks, Susan and New Hampshire librarians for a good, good read– and it DOES make me want to go to New Hampshire.

Take a look at Music Roads for some music by a New Hampshire native to slip into your CD as you travel to New Hampshire.

Is there a famous literary animal who hails from your state or country? Tell us the story.

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Henry David Thoreau

Destination: Concord, Massachusetts

Site: Henry David Thoreau’s Home

“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?“

So wrote American writer Henry David Thoreau one and a half centuries ago. Sounds like a bumper sticker from the present day environmentalists, doesn’t it?  Good old Thoreau continues to prove himself way out in front of the curve.

Thoreau, whose Walden Pond also provided us documentation of an early version of staycation (shudder!) wrote, if not travel books, certainly books that invite exploration of a place.

Our Great American Road Trip visited Massachusetts two weeks ago, so when I got this letter in the mail from the Thoreau Farm Trust, I just had to share it with you.

The non-profit organization has rescued the American pioneering environmental writer’s birthplace from destruction.  In keeping with the man’s “green” principles, the house has been restored with sustainability as well as historic values. A neat trick, since the house was built in 1730.

Thoreau House

I  like the idea that instead of being just one more historic house in a state packed with them (Emerson, Alcott, Whittier, Emily Dickinson, Longfellow, etc.), the Trust is creating a place for people to learn about Thoreau’s environmental ideas and learn what they can do to make a “tolerable planet.”

If you would like to keep tabs on the project, learn more details, or support their work, go to the Thoreau Farm Trust web site.

To read more about some of the writers of Thoreau’s day and place, see this article by R. Todd Felton, and his second about New England writers,  and this one about Emily Dickinson.

Did you know that Thoreau’s house was being opened to the public? Will it be on your list of places to go?  Have you read Thoreau? Love him or not?

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Dogtown, the book

Destination: Cape Ann, Massachusetts

Book: Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town (2009) by Elyssa East

Here we are in a wild, wooded 3,000 acre area next door to Gloucester MA. It may come as a surprise that we are not visiting Gloucester, a tourist mecca and authentic fishing town, or Cape Cod, or the historic and charming city of Boston.

I picked this new book because when I read it I was hooked from the very start. And it makes a good first step on our Great American Road Trip, because it reminds us of the great variety to be found in any state. You want to know about the whole state? Buy a guidebook. Here, we look for good reads that will also give you a sense of place.

Elyssa East, the author of [amazonify]1416587047::text:::: Dogtown [/amazonify] goes looking for the inspiration reflected in paintings by Marsden Hartley. She seeks a place of peace and healing. She finds a ghostly deserted colonial village, witches and warlocks, a cultivated wilderness, words of wisdom carved on immense boulders and an eerie landscape. And she follows the tracks of a gruesome murder and its impact on people’s feelings about Dogtown.

In this extensively researched literary non-fiction, East weaves together her many different tales in the way that underbrush tangles around the base of those glacier-tossed dolmens that dominate her thoughts and the landscape.

Does it make the reader want to go there? Depends.  I am willing to state that the next time I go to Boston, I’ll head north to Cape Ann and explore not only the usual tourists destinations of beach and quaint fishing village of Gloucester, but also hike into the woods of Dogtown.

The only fault I can find with the book is that I longed to see the paintings that inspired Elyssa East’s journey.  They probably are restricted by copyright so that they could not be reproduced. And heaven knows we can see plenty of them on Google images. In addition to his painting, Hartley wrote poetry, and here is what he had to say about Dogtown and its rocks.

Hartley, whose story gets buried (excuse the term) by the murder and subsequent trial, has words of wisdom that all travelers might well ponder. East says, “when he found a place he wanted to paint, he said that he ‘did as I always have to do about a place–look at it–see–it–and think of nothing else.’” He also quote T.S. Eliot:

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still

Even among these rocks.

Those words strike me as more inspiring than those preachy ones Roger Babson, economist and philosopher, had carved on the boulders. “When work stops, values decay,” “Keep out of debt, “Help Mother.” …Well, on second thought, I might carve that last one on a rock outside my door.

East does a good job of recreating this sometimes scary, sometimes peaceful landscape, but she also knows that you cannot comprehend a place without understanding its people. She talks with and introduces us to a fascinating parade of personalities. All in all, it makes wonderful travel literature for a road trip to New England.

For another view of Dogtown, you can read Anita Diamant‘s (author of The Red Tent) novel [amazonify] 074322574::text::::The Last Days of Dogtown (2008)[/amazonify] See a clip here of an interview with Diamant and some scenes of Dogtown.

You can always strike up a conversation with Elyssa East, author of Dogtown, on Twitter where she is [twitter]elyssaeast[/twitter].

MUSIC FOR THE ROAD

Get the music to go with a road trip visit to Cape Ann over at Music Road, where Kerry Dexter has some fisherman’s chanties and maybe more waiting for us.

MORE ON THIS STATE

And, if you want more of Massachusetts, see our post on Jaws at Martha’s Vinyard, Wellsfleet, Transcendental New England, France in Boston, Spenser’s Boston and the Pilgrims. See, didn’t I tell you? A lot of variety in one small state.

And thanks to Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster for providing me with a review copy.

Did you know about Dogtown? Have you visited it? Or is this all new to you?

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Destination: Boston

Book: Walking Boston by Robert Todd Felton

A GUEST POST BY Robert Todd Felton

Bivalve Molluscs, French Royalty, and the Streets of Boston

One of the best parts of walking around Boston is that you are always bumping up against some surprising scrap of American history.  Around one corner is the house where Paul Revere lived, or Ralph Waldo Emerson grazed cattle,…or the King of France taught French.

One of my favorite discoveries while writing the travel book Walking Boston was that the man who would become the last King of France in 1830, lived above a dry goods store near the waterfront and taught French to the young women of Boston.

Oyster House, Boston

At 41 Union Street, mere steps away from Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market with their New England bustle, is a somewhat innocuous, brown, two-story building.  Inside is the Union Oyster House, one of Boston’s landmark restaurants and the oldest restaurant in continuous use in the United States.

It boasts the requisite long history and famous anecdotes of Boston’s trademark establishments (the statesman and politician Daniel Webster used to down six plates of oysters accompanied by six whiskeys here).  However, long before it became a restaurant, it was Capen’s Silk and Dry Goods Store and the room on the second floor was rented to an itinerant French tutor named Louis-Phillippe.

Louis-Phillippe had fled France in 1793 when he was forced into exile by political changes brought about by The French Reign of Terror.  For years, he roamed around Europe avoiding French political entanglements but apparently not romantic ones.  According to some sources, he left one illegitimate son in Milan and one in Finland.  After living in Philadelphia and traveling throughout the eastern United States, Louis-Phillippe settled in Boston in 1796.

The King Instructs Young Ladies In French

According to Union Oyster House co-owner Mary Ann Milano-Picardi (better known as “Ma”), Louis-Phillippe lived on the second floor of the building and made his living by tutoring the young ladies of Boston in French for about a year before moving on again.  Louis-Phillippe finally ascended the throne as the King of the French in 1830 and ruled until 1848. Although he was the last “King” to rule France, Napoleon III called himself an “emperor” and was therefore the last monarch.

To find Louis-Phillippe’s room inside the Union Oyster House, go through the front door and head upstairs to the “The Louis-Phillippe Room.” According to “Ma,” it used to be known as the Pine Room, but so many people came in asking where Louis-Phillippe lived that they finally had to change the name.  While you are up there, take a look for booth 18.  President John F. Kennedy used to hide up there and eat in relative privacy.  If all the tables are taken, sneak back downstairs to belly up to one of the best places in Boston to get fresh oysters.  The huge wooden semicircular oyster bar serves a focal point for the room, and allows the shuckers to trade banter and quips with each other and the customers.

Interior, Oyster House, Boston

Mary Ann and her brother Joe are only the third owners of the restaurant and are dedicated to keeping its history alive.  For example, Ma gathered all the historical information to have the building granted National Historic Landmark status in 2003 and provided the images for this article.
In fact, when I asked her if there was anything new about the Union Oyster House to highlight in the article, she replied, “oh no, we keep things pretty much the same.”  In fact, Louis-Phillippe himself might just recognize his old digs.

Robert Todd Felton

You can find these stories and more in Robert Todd Felton’s Walking Boston.  His newest secret traveling tip is a little-known website called Academic Ambassadors , where academics and non-profit professionals can find great deals at wonderful hotels. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.

My heartfelt thanks to Todd Felton for sharing with us this little-known story from his research for Walking Boston. The news that a French King not only lived in Boston, but supported himself by teaching French, made me utter Sacre Bleu! Now I simply MUST get back to Boston to try out the Oyster Bar and “visit” the King. Did YOU know??? What other secrets have you discovered in your travels? Do share!!

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Mayflower II

Destination: New England

Book: Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathanial Philbrick

We might call it Nathanial Philbrick: Myth Buster

The story of the pilgrims fascinated me because although my ancestors did not arrive  on the Mayflower, they were not far behind.

Myth 1: “Pilgrims” were the first settlers.

Although many other Europeans  landed on North America before the Mayflower, the Puritans and companions who stepped ashore in what is now New England, did  found the first  still-enduring community. That information is not new, but this book’s background on the prior expeditions sheds light on the settlement of Plymouth.

The pilgrims also drew up a remarkable compact of governance which set the stage for participatory democracy on this continent that we now take for granted, and it is interesting to get the background on that.

My own ancestors were on that ill-fated boat that turned around and went back to wait out the winter storms. They re-boarded and arrived on the 2nd boat.  I’ve always been quite proud of that fact, but after reading Philbrick’s Mayflower, my pride mixed with a good deal of pondering.

His subtitle, Courage, Community and War sums up the main themes of this book. These people were indeed courageous.

Myth 2: They were all religious.

Not all 102 passengers were Puritans, driven by a sincere desire to start a church in a new land unhampered by state-imposed religious restrictions. Some were along for the adventure, or because they simply had run out of other options. This was a community that had moved together from Holland to England and intended to move as a body to the New World.  Had they not had this sense of community, they would never have survived to the second winter.

Myth 3: They were surprised by the Indians and both parties were hostile from the beginning.

First (Mythical) Thanksgiving

The War in the subtitle refers to King Philip’s War, rarely touched on in history books. When I was growing up, the Indians were relegated to the role of grateful guests at the Thanksgiving feast. Our awareness of the lives of Indians, and the relations with non-Indian settlers has made its way into our national story. It is politically correct for non-Indians to feel guilty. Philbrick paints a more complex picture than the 1950′s version OR the P.C. version of today.

But, and this was another revelation for me, the original Puritan fathers were quite fair and respectful in negotiating and the natives responded in kind.  It was the second generation of Europeans that took a harsher view and provoked the bloody conflicts referred to in the subtitle as “war.” (This reminds me of what happened with the Hawaiian missionaries. See post about Hawaii here.)

The Crossroads

I hope that you will have an opportunity to travel to the New England shores where the Pilgrims landed–not at the present location of Plymouth Rock, of course, and perhaps not on a rock at all.

Although the area around the alleged Plymouth Rock seemed tacky, I did enjoy a visit to Plimoth Village, a tasteful recreation of life inside the fort constructed by 1627.

Philbrook presents the deep background that helps us viscerally understand the world as seen by the Puritans and their fellow early world travellers as well as the complex and shifting alliances among Indian tribes along the coast.

Instead of one fateful moment–stepping onto a mythical rock–we have fifty years of struggle, painful decision making, letting go of assumptions, and building of new alliances.  This book certainly provides food for thought for the traveler to New England.

(Other posts about New England you might like: A Cape Cod Town; Emily Dickinson; Spencer’s Boston; Martha’s Vinyard and Jaws; The Trancedentalists.) Before you get too busy with the holidays, why not Subscribe to A Travelers’ Library by Email?.

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Books and Play: The Belle of Amherst by William Luce; The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson; and a Recipe

Bring me the sunset in a cup

Autumn makes me think of New England, and New England makes me want to get out [amazonify]0316184136::text::::The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson[/amazonify]. In a former life, I played Emily in the play The Belle of Amherst, and ever since I have been making the black cake she is making at the beginning of that play. I make it on Thanksgiving weekend, wrap it in cheesecloth dipped in brandy and serve it on Christmas Eve. (Cut the recipe in half or one-quarter if you must, but DO NOT call it a fruitcake.)

EMILY DICKINSON’S BLACK CAKE

as adapted by Vera Marie Badertscher

• 2 Pounds flour (8 cups)
• 2 pounds sugar (4 cups)
• 2 pounds butter (4 cups)
• 19 eggs
• 5 pounds raisins
• 1 1/2 pounds citron
• 1 1/2 pounds currents
• 1/2 pint brandy* (1 cup)
• 1/2 pint molasses (1 cup)
• 2 nutmegs (4-6 tablespoons, ground)
• 5 tablespoons total: cloves, mace, cinammon
• 2 tablespoons soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

* Emily says, “Not my father’s BEST brandy.”

Sift flour, soda, spices, salt.  Beat butter and sugar, add eggs a few at a time, beating after each addition.  Add brandy alternately with flour mixture.  Add molasses.  Sprinkle in fruit, slowly as you stir.
Bake at 250 degrees one and a half to three hours depending on the size of the pans you use. Full recipe makes one large “angel food cake” pan; plus 2-3 loaf pans.

Remove from pan to cool.  Wrap in cheesecloth dipped in brandy.  Store in air tight container for several weeks, dribbling on some more brandy from time to time.
Note: I have looked at other recipes on the Internet and immodestly believe this version is best. Slow baking and thorough basting are key.

Click on the image for an Emily poem. Come back every day this week for more New England. Tomorrow a book set in Cape Cod; Thursday a look at the Pilgrims, and France on Friday a surprise connection between France and New England.

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When I think of Boston, I think of 1776, the beginnings of the United States of America, and some amazing leaders. John Adams, my favorite founder, has been the subject of many biographies, but I can’t imagine any  more satisfying than John Adams by David McCullough. A little American history must go on the traveler’s library shelf in preparation for a trip to New England.

As I write, John Adams stares directly at me from the Gilbert Stuart painting reproduced on the book jacket.  He looks stern, intellectual, but also approachable and human. Alternatively, you may get the paperback book which cheats history by using a picture of Paul Giametti, who played John Adams on television.

McCullough portrays every detail of life in John Adam’s New England and Boston and how he hated to go down to Philadelphia for sessions of the Continental Congress. But traveling to Philadelphia, despite danger and outbreaks of disease is only one of the multitude of sacrifices made by the founders as they groped toward a democracy.

McCullough scores again with his book, 1776, a day by day tracing of the events of the beginning of the revolution.  So many things could have gone wrong. Our army was weak, our navy non-existent and our leaders playing the whole thing by ear. Perhaps a quote from John Adams explains the final outcome. “We cannot ensure success, but we can deserve it.”

————–

And here’s an English proverb for you—“A stumble can prevent a fall.”  So have you stumbled your favorite post from the traveler’s library,yet?

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The Old Manse

Perhaps the best way to understand Transcendentalism is to start where they did, in the study of an old minister’s house by a slow moving river in a town just nineteen  miles outside of Boston. It was there, in 1836, a young man named Ralph Waldo Emerson, living in his grandfather’s house, wrote the book that became the foundation Transcendentalism, Nature.

In it, Emerson is clear about the benefits of leaving both the actual rooms in which we live and our set ways of thinking, and striding out into nature:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

It was in this passage from Nature that Transcendentalism first came alive for me, and I structured A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England around what I view as Transcendentalism’s central quest: to forge an original relationship with the universe or, as Emerson puts it, to behold “God and nature face to face.”

So, the question is how did this group of writers, philosophers, poets, activists and dreamers conduct their quests? Where did they go for that “face to face” interaction? How does one forge one’s own unique relationship with the universe?

Forging One’s Own Unique Relationship With the Universe

Obviously, they went to Concord. They went to visit and converse with Emerson. They came to walk the paths around the town and draw inspiration from nature. In Boston, Elizabeth Peabody’s bookstore on West Street was another place they went to forge that relationship with the universe. They spent time here bouncing ideas off each other and searching for a better way before wandering up Tremont Street to School Street and the Old Corner Bookstore and the Parker House hotel.

Nathaniel Hawthorne went to Brook Farm and joined their utopian community in an unsuccessful effort to find his unique relationship. Bronson Alcott packed his family up and created Fruitlands utopian community just west of Concord in Harvard, Massachusetts…if only until winter came.

Emily Dickinson declined to travel much beyond her own home for God and the universe but found them among her garden plants and in the view from her second story room.

Perhaps the most well known method of forging an original relationship with the universe was the move to Walden Pond and attempt to “front only the essential facts of life” as Thoreau did from 1845 to 1847. His experiment in living the Transcendentalist quest, along with the record of it we know as Walden, has had perhaps the greatest impact of any of the Transcendentalist writings.

A Lake in the Woods

Perhaps there is no more telling example of the Transcendentalist legacy than the two square miles of Massachusetts surrounding and including Walden Pond. The lake itself and its shoreline are now part of a state reservation, with the Thoreau Institute tucked up among the woods south of the lake. Beyond that, the land is a patchwork of protected land, open fields and development. However, that is not to say that all is idyllic and tranquil. Route 2, Massachusetts’ main east/west thoroughfare north of the turnpike runs its four lanes of traffic less than a quarter mile from the site of Thoreau’s cabin. The exceedingly popular public beach at Walden Pond can see nearly a million visitors a year, only a fraction of whom are there because of Thoreau.

In sum, Walden Pond is an amalgamation of homage to Thoreau and his legacy; a beloved and much used natural place for swimming, fishing, and hiking; and a cautionary tale of shortsighted regional and urban planning. The same can be said for much of New England in general.

Transcendentalism Today

Transcendentalism has perhaps fared much better than the landscape which inspired it. While its heady ideas and radical philosophies seemed less thrilling as the industrial age got fully under way and many of its leading lights faded and died, Transcendentalism’s inherent optimism, recognition of our interconnectedness, and deeply-held appreciation of the natural world holds as true today as they did when Emerson first put pen to paper.

In fact (in a rough segue), one can still go to hear about Transcendentalism. I will be speaking at the All Souls Church in Manhattan this coming Thursday, February 26 about the Transcendentalists and my book, A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England. For more information about the event at All Souls Church and some of my other events, you can go to my Red Room page. I hope you will join me. If you can’t make it, please feel free to leave a comment here on my blog, Open Page – Open Road.

Thanks,

R. Todd

All the images seen here belong to R. Todd Felton.

NOTE: DO NOT FORGET. LEAVE A COMMENT HERE OR ON TOMORROW’S POST BY R. T. FELTON, AND YOU COULD WIN A COPY OF HIS “WALKING BOSTON.”

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.