Sunday, October 8, 2023

Tweets for Tweets (7): My Favorite Bird Photos July 2022- Early October 2023

It's been a busy 12 months as we head into the 2023 holiday season, and this blog suffered the consequences. Not that I've been lazy, mind you. Just a little distracted.

I've worked on several white paper topics for Carrier, including a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the centrifugal chiller. Carrier is 120 years old and reinventing itself, which is a fascinating process to watch (and cheer on).

I've also been writing for the Old Colony Historical Society blog. Articles include: 

I also got to be an early reader of Bill Hanna and Katie MacDonald's nearly-published book, a fascinating history of the Taunton River. It's a work of art, and I have yet to see all the archival pictures in the completed book.

Both King Philip's War and Innovation on Tap book talks and speaking engagements have picked up, and that's been fun. 

I've also been writing bunches of essays for our Family Tree Maker database, and one in particular to my family that summarizes fifty years of genealogical research. 

I started essays on the Boxford match factory and researched ideas for three possible books, none of which panned out--but it was good work.

Oh--- I almost forgot. :) We were blessed with our first grandson, Theodore Schultz Lindquist. I have re-learned my Raffi lyrics, how to change a diaper, and where the best swings are located. It's. been. the. greatest. thing. since. the 1990s. I haven't taken Theo to Anawan Rock yet, or told him about Willis Carrier's "Rational Psychrometric Formulae" or the mistake Eli Whitney made in his cotton gin business plan, but soon. However, I did build few books for him on Shutterfly, including one to prepare him for birding.

My pig continues to behave. I even met a gentleman on my last Mass Audubon trip who had a porcine valve inserted in 2008 (thirteen years before me), and he thinks he's got another five years before the pig konks out. I was hoping for a decade of steady oinks, so that news was very, very encouraging.

Our couples book club passed 22 years and 162 books, with Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead becoming one of my all-time favorites.

As for birding, I've hit the usual local hotspots, running my life list up to 725 species. I also 

  • Traveled to Block Island with Mass Audubon earlier this month, adding a Buff-breastedSandpiper and a Clay-colored Sparrow
  • Birded a little on Star Island (Isle of Shoals) as part of a King Philip's War book talk, getting to spend time with one of my favorite archaeologists and historians, Dr. Emerson Baker
  • Bay View, August 2023, one of the
    best handbell concerts all year
    Visited Rocky Mountain National Park last summer (while babysitting for a Taylor Swift concert) and was lucky to add a Violet-green Swallow, Mountain Chickadee, Pygmy Nuthatch, Mountain Bluebird, Western Tanager, Spotted Towhee, Black-chinned Hummingbird, and a Broad-tailed Hummingbird. That collection is big-time stuff for an Easterner!
  • Birded around Bay View in Petoskey, Michigan (though I am habitually three weeks late visiting Hartwick Pines to see a Kirtland Warbler), while my lovely and talented wife played handbells
  • And birded the Finger Lakes (including Montezuma, where we spotted a Trumpeter Swan) with a visit to Cornell's birding center last November.

Here are some of my favorite bird photos taken during that period. First, from the aforementioned Finger Lakes:



Sunday, March 19, 2023

After This, Nothing Will Be the Same (Dick Fosbury RIP)

I first posted this piece on March 15, 2020. We lost Dick Fosbury recently, so I am reposting in his honor. There are very few "singularities" in sports, a moment when there is a clear before and after. Babe Ruth's home runs. Seth Curry's 3-point shooting. Dick Fosbury's Flop. RIP.

Remember Dick Fosbury? In 1967 he was ranked the 61st best high-jumper in the world. At the Olympics in Mexico City the following year, he cleared the bar at 7 feet 4.25 inches and won the gold medal.

He did it with a style so different from the traditional "western straddle" that it came to be called the Fosbury Flop. People laughed. Coaches watched in disbelief. One newspaper described it as going over the bar "like a guy being pushed out of a 30-story window."

Today, you cannot find a world-class high jumper who doesn't do the Fosbury Flop. One moment it was one thing; the next, it would never be the same.


Monday, March 6, 2023

New Local History Posts for Old Colony Historical Museum

For local history fans, I have six articles posted on Old Colony's "Medium" site, which (I think and hope) can be easily accessed. 

The first, posted in July 2022, is The Golden Age of Radio in the Old Colony (Three Acts). Not only is it a fun re-telling of the roots of commercial radio in the United States, but it's also a shout-out to my Uncle Eddie Litchfield, who was the voice of WPEP for 40 years. 

The second article, posted in August 2022, is The Authors of the Old Colony: A Summer Reading List (If You Dare). I don't usually traffic in listicles so thought I'd try my hand. The line-up includes a little history, a little poetry, some biography, and even true crime. (What says summer reading like Lizzie Borden and forty whacks?)

The third post, from October 2022, is Loves Me Like a Rock: Eight Old Colony Hunks You Should Know. Counting backward, #3 is Anawan Rock and #2 Dighton Rock. I'll let you guess #1.

Uncle Charlie's First Parish Church (1926)
in Framingham, MA

In December 2022, Old Colony posted Charles Monroe Baker: Taunton's Architect of Large Buildings. My great Uncle Charlie died before I was born, but he left a legacy of beautiful buildings all over eastern Massachusetts. My grandmother told me once that "Uncle Charlie was not a true Baker, as he always tried to preserve the amenities." I'll leave the implications of that comment to your imagination.

My two most recent posts are the first two parts of a three-part series called Fire and Ice: Some Calamities of the Old Colony. Part one is all about famous fires, including Brockton's Strand Theatre Fire and the Myles Standish State Forest Fire in 1964. Part two focuses on famous snowstorms, including the Blizzard of '78.

As you browse other Old Colony posts on Medium, you'll find all kinds of interesting history articles from Katie MacDonald (on how museums can be redefined in the 21st century) and Dr. William Hanna, including one on local Nike Missle sites, the death of Elizabeth McKinstry (at the future St. Thomas rectory), and the Reverend Samuel Hopkins Emery, who was born in Boxford but made his name in Taunton.

Sunday, March 5, 2023

The Day Music Was Invented: April 4, 1969

It's the 50th anniversary of a string of albums that have made up about half of my listening over the last 50 years. I doubt that fact reflects well on me, but I don't care. I'm now at a place in life where an artist can receive a Grammy for "Lifetime Achievement," and I have not heard any of his or her music. Not a song. Can you hear me, Dr. Wu? I. don't. care. :) Forthwith, my tongue-in-cheek tribute to the music of my life.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Nothing much had happened in the music world before the spring of 1969. 

A bunch of guys with long hair fiddled around with harpsichords sometime between Rome and the steam engine. And then a bunch of guys with beards fiddled around with saxophones. I think some guys with guitars sang. Something like that.

Anyway, music was invented on April 4, 1969 when a band called the Chicago Transit Authority released its first album.

There followed a flood that barely lasted a decade. Nothing much has happened since 1979—since September 24, 1979, to be exact, when the Eagles released The Long Run.

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Gone But Not Forgotten: Dave Rossi (1957-2003)

Our baby with her godfather (Jan 1996)
We lost David Rossi 20 years ago today. It's a good time to crank up the Isaac Payton Sweat.

Dave grew up outside Pittsburgh and studied Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. His name is inscribed in the Omicron Delta Kappa Walk, a stone path between the Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Chapel, in honor of being named Senior of the Year in 1979.

I had the great misfortune to meet Dave when Pitt won the national championship, the Pirates won the World Series, and the Steelers won the Super Bowl. All at once. He was humble and softspoken, but not about his "City of Champions."

We roomed together in Brooklyn Heights, and both worked our first "real" jobs for the Chase Manhattan Bank, taking the subway each morning under the East River to the basement of Chase Manhattan Plaza. Our training floor included 200 recent college grads from all over the country, and we fell in with a great group of friends whose mission was to discover Manhattan. 

Since many of our colleagues lived on the Upper West Side, Dave decided that he and I had to purchase "crazy hats" so we could ride the 7th Avenue Line without trouble in the wee hours of the morning back to Brooklyn Heights. "Wear it low, look crazy, and never make eye contact," he told me. Good advice.

We thought it would be fun to celebrate New Year's Eve 1980 in Times Square. We donned our crazy hats and headed into (what was then) a cesspool, watching as a gang of thugs at the edge of Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve television lights cornered people and stole their wallets. Interested only in cash, the gang grabbed the bills and dumped each wallet in the trash. Dave and I went fishing, and on the morning of January 3, 1981, we mailed 15 wallets full of driver's licenses and credit cards back to their owners all around the country. 

Dave invited me home the first Thanksgiving we roomed to meet his family. His mother served a vast, delicious Italian meal, and I remember thinking, "This is nice but unusual for Thanksgiving."  Then Dave's mom cleared the table and served an entire traditional Thanksgiving turkey meal. He just looked at me and said, "Now you know why I have trouble losing weight."

I roomed with Dave during our first year at Harvard Business School. He introduced me to the HP-12C, chocolate-covered pretzels, and Cotton Eye Joe. He convinced me that Harry Truman was the only person in history who could have taken over the world. Based on his obsession with Louis L'Amour novels, he warned me never to carry a knife unless I was prepared to use it. More good advice.

Dave was the best man at Sue and my wedding in 1984 and godfather to our Emily.

A frozen moment, frozen in time
In the time I knew David Rossi, all he ever really wanted to do was go into space. He might have been an astronaut, except for his poor eyesight. Between senior positions at Spacehab and Orbital Sciences, he got close. Even when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as Dave lay dying of cancer, he never lost his optimism or passion for the final frontier.

At Dave's funeral in Washington, D.C., six of us were asked to speak.  

As we chatted beforehand, I realized we all believed the same thing: David Rossi was our best friend.

We were all correct.

Only the good die young. 20 years ago and still with us. Rest in peace, my friend.