Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist

Today, March 18, 2022, marks the 32nd anniversary of the art stolen from Boston's Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum.   Those irreplaceable, invaluable art objects have yet to be recovered . . . So sad . . .

N.B. Thanks to Deron of Manhattan for the sorrowful reminder!

A BABBLING BROOK?

A brook that babbles? Or should I write "babels"? Does a brook really speak all the languages of the folks at the famed Tower of Babel? Ref. Genesis 11:1–9

Mystery in Cold Springs Park

 

How long has this been there?  What is it?  One day left from the very old days? Or a recent planting?

"On the other hand . . . "

Grandpa Peter used to love academic discussions, especially on world history.  Whenever he asserted a historical fact, backed up by the Encyclopedia Brittanica (he was literally backed up by the Britannica as it was on the shelves right behind his chair), and someone would disagree with him with the words "On the other hand . . . ", Grandpa Peter would always laugh and reply, "On the other hand, he wore a glove!"

"My grandmother Is Choctaw!"

Marash Girl was in Edgartown and as is her wont, she started chatting with the man who was tending shop at the Corner Store.

"People always ask me why I look different," he commented.  (Marash Girl had not and would never ask such a question!) "My grandmother is Choctaw," he continued in explanation. "She's 93 years old!"

Marash Girl, who believes in recording family history whenever and wherever possible, asked, "Have you ever asked her about her life as a Choctaw? No? You'd better hurry.  You're a musician.  A drummer.  (Is it in your blood?)  You have the recording equipment.  Don't let this opportunity to learn about your past and our past pass!"

Whether or not he heeded Marash Girl's advice is unknown; whether or not you'll heed Marash Girl's advice is unknown.  But she hopes you will!


Marash Girl's maternal grandmother was Aintepsi and her paternal grandmother was Marashtsi but they didn't live long enough for her to ask them about their lives!

Anadama Bread, West Newton Style History

Anadama Bread?  We all know the story!  A frustrated fisherman from Rockport, Massachusetts, comes home hungry and tired and finds, once again, corn mush awaiting him, prepared by his beloved Ana.  Exhausted, frustrated and angry at his daily fare of corn mush, he grabs whatever flour is readily at hand -- rye, wheat, barley, oats -- and throws these flours into the corn mush, kneads the dough and throws it into the oven, cursing, "Ana!  Damn her!"  And that, dear readers, is how this delicious bread came into being . . .

However, in West Newton, the story differs.  At the local Trader Joe's, Karoun was excited to find a loaf of bread made of whole grains labeled "multigrain anadama"-- as if anadama bread is anything but multigrain -- she brought it home.  That night at supper, Marash Boy read aloud the legend printed on the front of the bread's packaging -- here's the direct quote:  "Legend has it that a New England Woman, Anna, had the ability to bake fine bread with the sweetness of molasses and heartiness of mixed grains and cornmeal."

"And here in print," said Marash Boy, somewhat annoyed, "is history in the making!"

The Handwriting on the Wall - Northampton, Massachusetts

"Norwottuck Land -- Go Home Bastaniak"   Northampton, Massachusetts, August 24, 2013
Photo by Marash Girl 

 "The Native American settlement at what is now Northampton was called Norwottuck, or Nonotuck, meaning: "the midst of the river." It consisted of a core area where clan meetings and elders' councils were held. This area included communal cemeteries and probably sweat lodges used for curing. The meadows were planted with maize, beans and squash. Throughout the homeland area stood dozens of wigwams, sometimes in small hamlets. An extensive network of paths joined each clan's members and connected Norwottuck peoples to their kin who lived in nearby homelands centered around present-day Hadley, Deerfield and Northfield. The Norwottuck homeland also included several small, fortified areas, one of which was located on what is now called Fort Hill."  . . . . from Historic Northampton

Nine Man Morris, Plimoth Plantation style

 In appreciation for their delivering  his mid day meal to him from the village above, this workman rewarded the children by taking a break from his work to teach them the ancient game of 9 Man Morris, a game that needs no more than a stick to draw the board in the soil, and 18 stones, 9 white and 9 black. 

 .

Above is the 'board' for 9 Man Morris.

The object of the game is to put 3 of your stones in a row, you may choose white stones or black, white goes first, on the intersection of the lines.  Taking turns, the first person to get three stones in a row without being blocked by the opponent wins the game. 

And just think!  You don't have to order the game online!  It's all right there for the asking!

Yellow Ribbons: Watertown Strong, Boston Strong

Watertown Square, 1/2 mile from the capture of the Boston Marathon  terrorists.
Memorializing the cities' strength in the face of adversity, yellow ribbons decorate the trees along Mt. Auburn Street.
Photo by Marash Girl

The Finnish in Takoma Park

Around the corner from Forest Park (where, by the way, there was no forest to be seen), on Elm Avenue in Takoma Park, a resident shared a small piece of Takoma Park local history with Marash Girl.

My bungalow was built in 1929 by a man from Finland, she said . . . Finnish people settled in these parts.  Those little out-buildings in the back were Saunas.  The Finnish man who built this house first lived in the little building in the back while he was building this house; then, after this house was built, he moved into this house, and made the little back building into a sauna.  He first created a cement block factory in the yard, and used the cement blocks to build this house, and if you look, you'll see these cement blocks all over Takoma Park.

(Look, Marash Girl did, and see, she did! Decorative cast cement blocks at the base of many of the houses in the area, particularly in the neighborhood surrounding Forest Park.)

Remembering Filene's Basement

There was a day when everybody who was anybody did their Christmas shopping all year long in Boston's Filene's Basement.  "The oldest off-price retailer in the United States, Filene's Basement focused on high-end goods and was known for its distinctive, low-technology automatic markdown system." [Wikipedia]

Recently, waiting in line for Chestnut Hill's Apple Store to open brought to mind the long morning lines at the top of the steep narrow cement stairway leading down to Boston's legendary Filene's Basement, housed in, yes, the basement of Boston's elegant Filene's Department Store.  Folks would travel thousands of miles or simply walk over Beacon Hill, less than one mile away, for this unequalled shopping experience  -- the first stop for folks arriving from London, the last stop for folks leaving for Paris -- and the regular visit for those locals who knew the secret of bargain hunting, long before bargain hunting and sales became literally "a dime a dozen".

There were always tales, true tales and tall, about the happenings in Filene's Basement.  Men would go to the Basement during their lunch hour, just to watch the women (also on their lunch hour) stripping to try on the clothes that they found for prices not to be found elsewhere!  Folks would buy their wedding dresses there, and, rumor has it, return the dresses after the wedding.  (As long as you returned the tags, and the clothes appeared unscathed, returns were accepted.)  There was even a tale of a woman who had purchased a wedding dress for her daughter's open casket, and returned it after the "viewing" at the Funeral Home!

Everyone who shopped the Basement had special techniques. The Basement's automatic markdowns attracted bargain enthusiasts, ever-increasing in numbers.  According to an article in the New York Times in 1982, "... every article is marked with a tag showing the price and the date the article was first put on sale. Twelve days later, if it has not been sold, it is reduced by 25 percent. Six selling days later, it is cut by 50 percent and after an additional six days, it is offered at 75 percent off the original price. After six more days — or a total of 30 — if it is not sold, it is given to charity."  Marash Girl knew a man who worked as a driver at the Massachusetts State House; he had the time to visit the Basement daily and he did just that.  He described his "system" to her one day:  he would locate a suit that he wanted to buy but couldn't afford even at its marked down price, move the suit from its appropriately sized rack to an inappropriate rack, and do this daily (as the workers would daily replace the suit to its appropriate rack), daily until the item was marked down to its lowest markdown; before it was given away to charity, he would find where he had hidden it, and purchase it for 25% of the original Basement price (which was already 50 to 75% off of the retail price).  True story!

Seamstresses would purchase clothing on the markdown rack, clothing that had been damaged or dirtied in the daily struggle for bargains (serious physical tug-of-wars), clean and repair the  clothing until it was "as good as new", and sell the designer pieces in their high end boutiques for half of the original price, still making a huge profit.

Dowagers from Beacon Hill would sort through tables mounded high with designer labeled skirts, marked, for that day only, 5 for $10!

The experience was one to remember for a lifetime, and now, sad to say,  lives on only in memory, for Filene's Basement, as it was in the heart of Boston's Washington Street, is no longer.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Our history lives with us every day, in every way; and if nothing else, our past survives in our genetic memory.  (Click here to see previous blog on Iffar, the lathe, and Plimoth Plantation.)  Although William Faulkner refers above to the history of slavery in the United States, Marash Girl, upon reading these lines, cannot help but feel compassion for the Armenians who daily hear denial by the descendants of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.

Porcupine hair shaving brushes? Who knew!

Old-time shaving brush as Marash Girl remembers it. Image courtesy of Google.

Porcupine hair shaving brushes?  Did our grandfathers and great grandfathers know that they were shaving their faces with porcupine hair? Who knew?  

Plimoth Plantation: Native from Canada points to his headdress of porcupine hair.

There they were, Marash Girl, Enila & Iffar, in the Crafts Center at Plimoth Plantation, watching a Native from Canada making a war lock using porcupine hair.  When the Native craftsman held up a handful of the porcupine hair, Marash Girl gasped, "That sure looks like the old-time shaving brush that Grandpa Moses used to use on the third floor of 474/476 Lowell Avenue in Newtonville!"  "Didn't you know?" the craftsman laughed.  "It was porcupine hair, (not the quills, of course) that was used to make those old time shaving brushes."  Marash Girl hadn't known.  Her dad, Peter, was a proudly modern man who used ONLY electric shavers, and yes, shavers in the plural! He had two!  Not a porcupine hair shaving brush to be found in his room!

Mooncussers . . . the land pirates of Cape Cod

Sleeping in a house along New England's Cape Cod seashore with a window opening on to the dunes, nightly listening to the moan of the fog horn, brought to mind the mooncussers, the land pirates of Cape Cod.  Land pirates, you ask?  How can that be?  Dastardly deeds were indeed committed along the rocky coast of New England.    Living in the early days along the Atlantic Ocean,  in a time when lighthouses were few and far between, mooncussers had no need to go to sea to eek out a living.  Mooncussers simply awaited a moonless night, a night when ships were headed into port,  stood on the rocky outcroppings so common to the New England shore, waving lanterns, providing a light in the darkness, a light which would lead ships to certain destruction, a light which would lead mooncussers to certain wealth.  And why the name mooncusser?  If the moon was shining, the ships could circumvent the rocks and arrive in safe harbor, thus depriving the land pirates of certain wealth, and providing the mooncussers with good reason to cuss the moon.

Tanzies for Lunch, Plimouth Plantation Style

I must prepare tanzies for Mrs. Bradford's lunch.  Would you like to know how I do so?  You must begin with fresh eggs from your hen yard.  The fresher the eggs, the better the tanzy.  Crack the eggs and separate them from the shells, for we would not want to have egg shells in our tanzy.  Beat the eggs with a fork (although I beat mine with my trusty knife that is always at my side); then add bread crumbs (the only bread we have here in the New World is a very coarse corn bread), and chopped herbs of your choice (I believe Enila will use parsley chopped finely).  Melt butter in a flat iron pan (I believe you call them cast iron fry pans), then pour the egg mixture into the pan of sizzling butter, making sure the egg mixture covers the pan and is about 1/4 inch in depth.  Place the pan over the ashes at the front of the fire. Do continue to check the edges of the tanzy as it cooks, to make sure the tanzy is cooking evenly.  When it is browned all along the edges, remove the fry pan from from the fire, and slip the tansy out of the pan onto a flat board or platter.  Then turn the tansy wet side down onto the hot iron pan.  (This is a bit tricky.) Place the pan  full of eggs back onto the front of the fire and as the tanzy cooks, check around the edges to make sure the eggs are browning evenly.  When the underside is sufficiently browned, slip the tansy onto a platter, and serve.  If you're lucky, it will land in one piece and your family will be pleased.

The tansy cooks over hot ashes
at the front of the fire in a heavy
 iron fry pan.

Anna checks the readiness of the tanzy.

Be sure to remove the tansy carefully from the pan; we mustn't present broken tansies -- not very appetizing!

Now Enila & Iffar know how to make a tansy (tanzie, tanzy, tansie), and you do, too!

Button, button, who's got the button?

Button, button, who's got the button?  Yesterday, as she watched the re-enactor at Plymouth Plantation making buttons from cloth, Marash Girl remembered playing that button game during the rainy days of childhood.  

Marash Girl used to sew, and used to sew buttons onto cloth, but she never knew that you could make buttons out of cloth.  Even before she started sewing buttons, one of her favorite past times was  sorting through her mom's big fat button bottle, treating those beautiful creations, buttons they were called, with reverence.  

Rarely was there a match . . .  large mother of pearl buttons, tiny pressed metal buttons, wonderful shapes, colors, textures,  buttons with two holes,  buttons with three holes (yes, three holed buttons), buttons with four holes. . .  But she never found a cloth button with no holes!  Of course, she wouldn't have known it was a button; it would have looked like a tiny ball of cloth, for this is how they made buttons in the 1600's on Plimoth Plantation:  

1.  Cut a piece of roughly woven cloth into a 1 inch square (or any cloth that would match the clothing that needs buttons).

2.  Tuck the edges of the cloth into the center, forming a smooth ball on one side, with all the cut edges tucked together to one point on the other side; with a needle and thread matching the color of the material.

3.  Sew all those edges together at the center and knot the thread.  That's the back of the button.  And your button is complete!  

No, you don't have to buy a mold for the button.  Just the cloth, a needle and thread, and, for comfort, a thimble.   

When to stop? Keep making buttons until you have enough, or even more!

Public Telephone Booth at the Publick House, Sturbridge, Massachusetts

Marash Girl's earliest memories of  public telephone booths (those little wooden and glass havens of privacy in the midst of chaos) was from her years in Kindergarten when she and her two best friends (names now forgotten) would meet privately after school in the telephone booth on the corner of Walnut and Bowers Streets (before Marash Girl arrived at her father's store, Newtonville Electrical Co., Inc., 84 Bowers Street, in Newtonville, Massachusetts, the corner store in Uncle Vartan's brick store and apartment complex opposite the Newtonville Train Station -- yes, there was a beautiful stone train station on Bowers Street in Newtonville!)

Public telephones today?   in this day and age, where else would you find public telephones, much less a public telephone in a booth, but at the Publick House (Sturbidge, Massachusetts)  (See Marash Girl's post on New Year' Day at the Publick House.)  Here's the rub.  To the left of the Public Telephone Booth is none other than . . . an ATM machine!  Can you see the M on the left of the telephone booth in the photo at the beginning of this post?
 

Please share are your memories of public telephone booths.

Miss Griffin, Cheesecake Brook, John Eliot and the Jackson Homestead

Marash Girl just received notice that the Jackson Homestead is open today, Sunday, from 12 to 5, with Free Admission for all.  (Apparently the first Sunday of the month is a period of grace for those of us who are not members of the Newton Historical Society.)

The Jackson Homestead, located 1/2 mile from Exit 17 on the Massachusetts Turnpike, now home of the Newton  (Massachusetts) Historical Society, was the home of the man (William Jackson) who brought the railroad through Newton (actually, the train ran along Washington Street right across the street from his house) and was a stop on the Underground Railroad (significantly so!)

Marash Girl remembers Miss Griffin, third grade teacher at Claflin School, taking her class (Marash Girl included), on a field trip through Newton where the class visited Cheesecake Brook (the folks who lived along the brook reported that there were river rats running along its shores), the John Eliot Memorial (commemorating the first missionary to the Native Americans in Newton, Massachusetts, the preacher after whom Eliot Church in Newton Corner is named), and, yes, Jackson Homestead where the class visited a stop on the Underground Railroad, the dry well in the basement of the building at the bottom of which many a runaway slave had hidden awaiting safe journey to Canada.  Yes, and all this right here in Newton Corner, Massachusetts!

Take advantage of today's free admission and visit the Jackson Homestead this afternoon.  Perhaps you'll get to meet Marash Girl saying a prayer for the misfortunes of all of the folks who had hidden in that dry well, awaiting safe journey to freedom.

Look behind you, but not too far behind you!

Most alarming to learn that universities are discouraging the researching of events and the writing of books on the 17th and 18th Centuries; apparently the 20th Century will do!  How can we know who we are if we don't know where we've come from and why, why we think the way we do, or why we speak the way we do?  (If any of you attended the lecture by David McCullough at the Speakers Series at Symphony Hall this fall, you will have been reminded of the many ways in which the past impinges on our every day lives. )   Now who can suggest the reason(s) that universities may be taking this contemporary bent?