life indelible
summertime, oh summertime,
summer without end

Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end; this was the background, and the life along the shore was the design, the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp and the paths leading back to the outhouses and the can of lime for sprinkling, and at the souvenir counters at the store the miniature birch-bark canoes and the post cards that showed things looking a little better than they looked. This was the American family at play, escaping the city heat …

From Once More to the Lake, as published in Essays of E.B. White by E. B. White, New York, Harper Colophon Books, 1979.

In his forward to the book of essays, Mr. White writes, “The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new “attempt,” differs from the last and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self -centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.”

Sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.

Is that not fabulous?

And spot on for all these goofy essays that seem to spill off of my keyboard.

Now here is the odd thing.

I hate to type.

I will go to the greatest lengths imaginable to find a bit of text that I can copy and paste rather than type myself.

I had it in mind to use this bit of story, Once More to the Lake by Mr. White.

But far be it from me to want to retype the the text I wanted so I searched for something I could copy which led me to an electronic copy of the Essay’s of Mr. White which led me to re-read his forward to the essays which led me to copy and past that little bit of text from the forward I just quoted.

In doing so, the word belief in the phrase sustained by the childish belief was copied as the word behef or sustained by the childish behef.

Spell check tossed it out so I looked it up.

Maybe behef was a word the Mr. White selected as a bit of word play.

The closest word I could find was from the Middle English and that behef was a variation of the word biheve (according to the online dictionary of Middle English available from the University of Michigan which as an institution has been working on the Dictionary of Middle English for as long as I can remember) which is an adjective meaning of things: needed; beneficial; appropriate, fitting.

Things needed, beneficial, appropriate and fitting.

I love that.

Though closer inspection did prove that the word Mr. White wanted was belief, I like the sentence very much with behef.

The sentence could have read, Sustained by the childish need that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest which is altogether beneficial, appropriate and fitting.

Summertime, oh summertime.

Summer without end.

Needed, beneficial, appropriate and fitting.

Life indelible.

BTW – the photo above is of my sister Lisa along the shore of Lake Michigan was taken by my Father sometime in the late 1960’s.

My family has had a long association with the West Michigan artist Armond Merizon.

This photo could have been painted by him.

Life indelible.

the good life apart
from the hustle and worries
of a main street world

From The Appalachian photographs of Earl Palmer by Jean Haskell Speer, The University Press of Kentucky, 1990.

The caption for this photograph reads:

With a generous-giving milk cow, a pen full of fattening hogs, and a flock of Plymouth Rock hens of high laying qualities, Blaine Sartain lives the good life apart from the hustle and worries of a main street world. [Near John’s Creek in Craig County, Virginia, 1960]

In her forward to the book, Ms. Speer writes, The first time I saw some of Earl Palmer’s photographs I was captivated. As a folklorist interested in the traditional culture of Appalachia, I was struck by Palmer’s images of the folklife of mountain people. There were photographs of farm life, mountain cabins and rail fences, quilting, basketmaking, gathering mountain herbs, boiling molasses, stirring apple butter, and making moonshine. But it was not only the subject matter that drew me to the photographs. I had seen and even made photographs of mountain folk culture many times before. I was struck by the quality of the photographs, the range of subject matter, the apparent age of some of the photographs, and the story they seemed to tell about Appalachia.

Paging through the book, I too was captivated.

Captivated by the photos sure.

But the thoughts behind the photos, behind the images, the people.

People who live the good life apart from the hustle and worries of a main street world.

tyrant character …
unfit to be the ruler
of a free people

Adapted from the line written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of the Independence that reads, “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

So how do we define tyrant?

The online Merriam Webster says simply: an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution.

Who would have ever thought that this country would live long enough to have the Supreme Court of the United States rule that the Office of the President of the United States was now deemed to BE an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution.

I don’t know about you but those words Mr. Jefferson wrote, that expressed the reasons for the Declaration sent a chill down my spine.

Henry Louis Mencken said back on July 26, 1920, that “As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.”

Don’t folks realize this is what 1776 was all about.

They say the courts move to establish the original intent of the founding fathers.

Can’t get much more original than the Declaration of Independence that all those Founding Fathers signed.

And they signed a statement that said that all American’s were equal, restrained by law and by constitution.

And if someone would not, could not be restrained by law and by constitution, then that person was unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Could that be more clear?

Yet …

We doing it too ourselves and over this 4th of July we should know that.

As Mr. Mencken continued, “We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

the greater the urge …
the need, the will, the hunger
to be somewhere else

What are roots and how long have we had them?

If our species has existed for a couple of million years, what is its history?

Our remote ancestors followed the game, moved with the food supply, and fled from evil weather, from ice and the changing seasons.

Then after millennia beyond thinking they domesticated some animals so that they lived with their food supply.

Then of necessity they followed the grass that fed their flocks in endless wanderings.

Only when agriculture came into practice—and that’s not very long ago in terms of the whole history—did a place achieve meaning and value and permanence.

But land is a tangible, and tangibles have a way of getting into few hands.

Thus it was that one man wanted ownership of land and at the same time wanted servitude because someone had to work it.

Roots were in ownership of land, in tangible and immovable possessions.

In this view we are a restless species with a very short history of roots, and those not widely distributed.

Perhaps we have overrated roots as a psychic need.

Maybe the greater the urge, the deeper and more ancient is the need, the will, the hunger to be somewhere else.

From Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (Bantam, New York, 1962).

But land is a tangible, and tangibles have a way of getting into few hands.

Tangibles have a way of getting into few hands.

Mr. Steinbeck ends his book with this thought.

With all the polls and opinion posts, with newspapers more opinion than news so that we no longer know one from the other, I want to be very clear about one thing.

… it is a troubled place and a people caught in a jam. And I know that the solution when it arrives will not be easy or simple. I feel that the end is not in question. It’s the means—the dreadful uncertainty of the means.

Watching, looking and waiting as each little bit of news dribbles out.

I sense the urge of need and I know that my will, my hunger is to be … somewhere else.