Off-the-Shelf

Incidental History

Researching some articles on Cape Cod history, I came across the following incidental news items in old issues of the Barnstable Patriot newspaper, presented here in no particular order, without rhyme or reason, and without explanation.

Oh, incidentally, my commentary is provided in bold type.

{Musical accompaniment: Incidental music from Bizet's L'Arlésienne.}

From the June 24, 1873 issue: 

"Attention is being directed to investment of money in large three-masted schooners of from 1,000 to 1,200 tons capacity. Attention is also being directed to Obadiah, the village idiot, who is presently standing on a bench in the center of town completely starkers!"

From July 7, 1874:

"Many a man is rich without money. Thousands of men with nothing in their pockets are rich. A man born with a sound constitution, a good stomach, a good heart, good limbs, and a pretty good head-piece, is rich. Good bones are better than gold; tough muscles better than silver; and nerves that flash fire and carry energy to every function are better than houses or land. A good health plan with a $15 co-pay doesn't hurt either."

September 23, 1873:

"Civil war has broken out in Morocco between the son and brother of the deceased Sultan, and the trade of the country is paralyzed. It is believed hostilities between the two men began over who was to pay the funeral charges."

September 30, 1873:

"The stable connected with Shattuck's Hotel, Orleans, was destroyed by fire Sunday night. Loss about $1,500. The cause of the fire is under investigation, although it is believed that one of the horses in the barn, a nag named Nellie, plugged too many kitchen appliances into one electrical outlet."

December 23, 1873:

"Mr. H-'s farm produces beets and turnips weighing fifteen pounds each, and Mr. T-'s farm produces cabbages weighing forty pounds each. And the farm of Mr. McS- recently produced a chicken with two heads -- one head called Abbott and the other called Costello -- that performs the 'Who's on First?' comedy routine every hour on the hour, with a special matinee performance on Sunday afternoons!"

November 25, 1873:

"The death of the Honorable Mr. H- is announced. In a statement issued by the late Mr. H-, he said, 'My sudden and untimely death took me totally by surprise, although I had a funny feeling something was wrong with me when I hadn't moved for three days.' He went on to say, 'Now that I'm dead, I'll have more time to catch up on my reading. Who knows, perhaps I'll take up painting, or sculpting, or perhaps even gardening. In any case, I'm very excited to have passed on and am looking forward to being among the recently deceased.' "

October 7, 1873:

"A man was boasting that he had been married twenty years, and had never given his wife a cross word. His wife, on the other hand, swears like a sailor at sea!"

October 7, 1873:

"The Emperor of Brazil stands six feet four inches in his boots. He stands six foot five inches in his wife's red pumps."

And, finally, this bit of incidental news from September 30, 1873:

"The schooner Hannah D of Harwich, from Bangor for Salem, loaded with wood, ran ashore on the North-east point of Squirrel Island, Maine. All crewmen survived the shipwreck, and were landed safely at the island in a lifeboat -- where they were then swiftly devoured by a pack of large, ravenous gray rodents."

Jack Sheedy

Leave a comment »

Higher Consciousness

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!"

- From the movie "The Third Man."

{Musical accompaniment: Zither instrumental interlude}

In other words...

Friction brings about fruition. Harmony maintains the status quo.

Or, in other words...

We can either live the life we wish to live, or else let our lives pass us by.

Or, in spiritual terms...

We can either live our lives preparing for an afterlife, or we can live our lives as God would have intended us to live it - full of gusto!

Or, in spirituous terms...

We can either add spirits to our daily glass of existence, or else nurse a placebo hoping to trick ourselves into thinking we're getting a good buzz out of life.

And that, my friend, is why I'm now wearing suspenders.

"Suspenders?" you ask.

Yup, suspenders. I can't believe I've gone without them for 46 years, 7 months, and 5 days (give or take, with leap years). And now I don't know how I can live without them. A pair of suspenders is, in my opinion, the most amazing thing that God, in His infinite wisdom, placed upon this planet Earth, right up there with the fax machine, the tubeless tire, and latex paint. Dungarees that have drooped on me for years are now being given a new lease on life. I feel uplifted! Enlightened! As if raised to a higher consciousness!

But enough about suspenders. Let's get back to the meaning of our lives. Well, the meaning of my life, at least. After all, this is my blog.

I had a wonderful English teacher back in high school. Although I didn't do so hot in her class I got enough out of the course to know that writing was something I wanted to do. So, I joined the school literary club, which placed me in touch with like-minded students with views on life, the universe, God, and where that weekend's party should be held. Sure, it was more of a social club than a literary club, but it was a great bohemian experience during an impressionable time.

Now 30 years removed from the classroom, I estimate that over that time I have written something approaching one million words (with newspaper and magazine articles, and with books, and with blogs, and with short stories, and with a 600-page double-spaced novel that was rejected by thirty different publishers, and with weekly shopping lists). That comes to 33,333 words per year, or, on average, about 91 words per day  ... give or take, with leap years.

And, after another few decades of writing, when pages and pages and pages of my stuff occupy boxes on top of boxes on top of boxes in my cellar, both published and unpublished, and when my time in this particular three-dimensional universe has expired, it will be the job of a cleaning crew to haul the stuff off to the local transfer station, which will then hand it over to an interstellar disposal company, perhaps something like Rapid Rocket Refuse, Incorporated. In turn, R.R.R., Inc. will then blast my stuff away into space with all the other household trash (since by then all our landfills here on earth will be full).

And in that sense, my written words will travel off into the cosmos for all of eternity - immortal, infinite, toward a higher consciousness, toward God perhaps - along with fast food wrappers, orange rinds, and spent coffee grinds.

But enough of all that higher consciousness crap. Let's get back to the subject of my new suspenders...

Jack Sheedy

P.S.: This concludes Part 1 in a two-part series of semi-spiritual suspender blogs. In the second installment, I will not only prove that God exists, but that He currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.

P.P.S.: I am currently at work on a Gospel-inspired musical entitled Judas Iscariot Superstar - I figure every argument has two sides. In this version, Judas is the one who is crucified, Jesus is the one who betrays him, and Mary Magdalene is a single mother who works behind the counter of a Jerusalem bakery serving Dead Sea Scones.

P.P.P.S: After a decade of making highly involved mathematical calculations during my spare time, I have finally finished a theorem that proves the existence of God. The key variable in the equation was the number of grains of sand on all the beaches around the world, which I determined as (X-1)² where X is a whole number greater than 100 yet just shy of infinity. Interestingly, the formula also proves the existence of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Leprechauns.

Leave a comment »

Abel Prescott Rides Again

Normally, I don't make a habit of rerunning my blog posts. But in this case, I'm gonna.

Back in November I posted the following blog about the midnight rides of Paul Revere, Abel Prescott, et al. Why I chose to post it in November I'm not quite sure. Anyway, it seems appropriate to rerun it today, April 19^th, on the actual anniversary of the midnight rides and of the battles of Lexington and Concord.

The tale of that April early morning reminds us of the patriotic spirit during those revolutionary times that saw the birth of a nation. And it reminds me that as a nation we must continue to ride fearlessly into the future ... to face whatever that future may bring.

Last month, prior to attending a Bruins game at the Garden, my son and I walked the Freedom Trail from the Commons to Faneuil Hall. We stood before Revere's grave, and Hancock's, at the Granary Burying Ground. We stopped by the Old State House and the scene of the Boston Massacre. And then we had lunch in an old pub along Union Street.

Two hundred and thirty plus years later the bells of freedom still ring out, bells first rung by such Boston patriots as Otis and Adams and Adams and Hancock and Revere and many others. I take great pride in the town of my birth - Boston - and in the patriotic role she played so many long years ago. Long live that patriotic spirit.

I entitled my earlier post The Midnight Ride of Abel Prescott. It follows...

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear,

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five,

Hardly a man is now alive,

Who remembers that famous day and year."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sometimes becoming part of the annals of American history is just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

For instance, in April 1860, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow toured many of the historic spots around Boston, including the old North Church. Since it was April, his poetic mind considered the battles of Lexington and Concord and the now famous ride of Paul Revere.

In his diary for April 5, Longfellow wrote: "We climb the tower to the chime of the bells, now the home of innumerable pigeons. From the tower were hung the lanterns as a signal that the British troops had left Boston for Concord."

Later that month, Longfellow began work on the poem "Paul Revere's Ride," which would later appear in his book Tales of a Wayside Inn. This poem formed the basis for what generations of schoolchildren would learn of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, forever making the Boston silversmith a legendary Patriot. Never mind that some of what Longfellow wrote was not entirely historically accurate -- an American folk legend was born!

Of course, Revere did not ride alone. He and fellow Patriot William Dawes were sent from Boston to carry word to John Hancock and Samuel Adams at Lexington that the British were planning to arrest the two that night. After rowing from Boston to Charlestown, Revere then rode on horseback to Lexington, arriving there at about midnight. Dawes took a different route from Boston, arriving at Lexington around 12:30. There, the two were successful in warning Hancock and Adams in time, and at 1:00 set off for Concord to alert the militia of the British troop movement.

Before leaving Lexington, Revere and Dawes met up with Samuel Prescott, who was heading home after spending the evening with his fiancé. They enlisted Prescott to ride with them. The three got as far as the town of Lincoln, where they encountered British troops. The British detained Revere. Dawes was thrown from his horse as he made his escape. Prescott, alone, dodged the British and made his way to Concord. There, after spreading the word that "the British were coming," he enlisted his 15-year old brother, Abel, to ride for Sudbury and Framingham while he rode on to Acton. Along the way other riders joined the cause. In fact, there were perhaps as many as 40 riders that night alerting the local communities of the British troop movement.

Yet, it was Revere who would become forever immortalized by Longfellow's pen, his persona serving as a conglomerate of the Patriotic spirit inherent in all the riders on that memorable night.

But, what if Longfellow had chosen 15-year old Abel Prescott, Jr., instead of Paul Revere, to represent the patriotic midnight rider. Hmmm...

Abel Prescott's Ride

Listen, my children, to all in earshot,

Of the 1:00 am ride of Abel Prescott,

On the nineteenth of April, just after midnight,

Barely a man, perhaps too young to fight,

Only fifteen years old, an adult he was not.

Born in Groton, Mass in seventeen fifty-nine,

Named for his father, of a proud family line,

His brother was Samuel, a doctor by trade,

Later to be imprisoned in a British stockade,

To die a Patriot's death, revered for all time.

That April night, Samuel Prescott, Dawes, and Revere,

Departed Lexington as the British troops drew near,

They rode as far as Lincoln, where the three met the foe.

Prescott escaped on horseback, on to Concord he would go,

To announce the Brits were marching, loud and clear.

At Concord he met with his younger brother Abel,

Who quickly saddled up a horse at a local stable,

Samuel rode for Acton, while Abel to Sudbury,

And then onward to Framingham in such a hurry,

By morning he was back at the family breakfast table.

Abel Prescott lived into his 80's, a ripe old age,

His name a footnote upon history's yellowed page,

A Patriot, like his brother; like Revere and Dawes,

Whose heroic ride championed the Patriots' cause,

A boy who helped set freedom from its cage.

Jack Sheedy

3 comments »

The Gospel According to...

The following short gospel, which was etched upon a parchment scroll and placed in a clay vase, was recently unearthed in a cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was apparently written by an unnamed Roman soldier who was patrolling the area around 33 A.D., around the time of Passover, just after the Sabbath, on the first day of the week, just around sunrise ... Jerusalem time.

 CHAPTER 1

   1. It was early on the morning after the Sabbath. I was on patrol, walking my beat down along Burial Ground Hill, near the tombs belonging to the family of Joseph of Arimathea, when I noticed a woman by the name of Mary Magdalene running toward me.

   2. She seemed rather distraught and claimed that she had just visited the grave of one Jesus of Nazareth - to anoint his body with oils - when she discovered the tomb empty.

   3. I investigated her claim, and did indeed discover the grave to be empty, save for some linens left there upon the hewn rock.

   4. I then brought Ms. Magdalene downtown to the station to give official testimony, and then began my investigation by calling in four witnesses.

CHAPTER 2

   1. First I interrogated a fellow named Matthew, a former tax collector who had arrived in Jerusalem with this Jesus fellow to celebrate Passover.

   2. After listing all of Jesus' ancestors, and who begot whom all the way back to the time of King David, Matthew finally arrived at the events of that morning after the Sabbath.

   3. What follows in quotes is his testimony; my comments are in bold and in parentheses:

   4. "And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher." (Now we're getting somewhere, there were two Marys present that morning!)

   5. "And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and coming, rolled back the stone, and sat upon." (Ah, so an angel was involved!)

   6. "And his countenance was as lightning, and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men." (You mean to tell me this one angel killed a number of highly trained Roman guards! I find that hard to believe.)

   7. "And the angel answering, said to the women: Fear not you; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here ..." (Good grief, the angel kidnapped him!)

CHAPTER 3

   1. Next I interrogated a man named Mark, who though he was not present had heard the story from a friend of Jesus' named Peter, a/k/a "The Rock."

   2. "And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought sweet spices, that coming, they might anoint Jesus. (So, there was a third woman present!)

   3. "And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came to the sepulcher, the sun being now risen." (Yes, yes, we have determined it was early in the morning on the first day of the week.)

   4. "And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulcher? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back. For it was very great. And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe: and they were astonished." (A young man? Matthew had said it was an angel!)

   5. "Who saith to them: Be not affrighted; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen, he is not here ..." (How can you trust anyone who says things like "saith" and "affrighted"?)

CHAPTER 4

   1. My next interview was with a fellow named Luke, who though he never met Jesus of Nazareth, received his information from Paul, a/k/a Saul ... who, come to think of it, also never met this Jesus ... which means it's all hearsay ... which means it will never hold up in court! Nevertheless, his testimony follows:

   2. "And on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the sepulcher, bringing spices which they had prepared." (Yes, yes, first day of the week, early in the morning, sepulcher, spices - I've heard all this before.)

   3. "And they found the stone rolled back from the sepulcher." (Yes, yes, stone rolled back, yes, get on with it!)

   4. "And going in, they found not the body of the Lord Jesus." (Yes, yes...)

   5. "And it came to pass, as they were astonished in their mind at this, behold, two men stood by them, in shining apparel." (Two men?! Now we're getting somewhere!)

   6. "And as they were afraid, and bowed down their countenance towards the ground, they said unto them: Why seek you the living with the dead?" (Hmmm ... the living with the dead ... hmmm, seems like there's a clue in there somewhere.)

   7. "He is not here ..." (Yes, yes, we know he is not there! But where is he?!)

CHAPTER 5

   1. My final interview was with a fellow named John, a/k/a "The Beloved," who was an associate of Jesus and was nearby when he was crucified. Finally, a credible witness!

   2. Here is his testimony:

   3. "And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene cometh early, when it was dark, unto the sepulcher, and she saw the stone taken away from the sepulcher." (Hmmm, earlier testimony stated that Mary was not alone and that the sun was up. Someone is not telling the truth.)

   4. "She ran, therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith to them: They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him." (Who is this "other disciple"? I need names!)

   5. "Peter therefore went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the sepulcher. And they both ran together, and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher. Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulcher ... Then that other disciple also went in, who came first to the sepulcher." (Yes, yes, I get it, the "other disciple" won the footrace with Peter to the sepulcher, but what happened next?!)

   6. "The disciples therefore departed again to their home." (Oh, great, a dead end!)

   7. "But Mary stood at the sepulcher ... and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been laid." (Two angels! Now we're on to something!)

   8. "They said to her: Woman, why weepest thou? She saith to them: Because they have taken away my Lord; and I know not where they have laid him."

   9. "When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and she knew not that it was Jesus."

   10. "Jesus saith to her: Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?"

   11. "She thinking that it was the gardener, said to him: Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away." (I've got it! It was the gardener! The gardener did it!! Quick, issue a warrant for the gardener's arrest!!!)

For a much better account of the resurrection, you may wish to consult the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Oh, and have a Happy Easter.

Jack Sheedy (the Lesser)

3 comments »

Old Dog - New Trick

Those who have followed this blog over the past years perhaps remember me mentioning my Boston Terrier, Lucy, from time to time.

She and I are inseparable companions who share similar views on music, art, politics, and life in general.

On music and art we are both partial to the impressionists (Debussy, Ravel, Monet, Renoir). On politics we are partial to the Whig Party (Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Fillmore). And in terms of life in general we've reached the shared understanding that any food from my dish that hits the floor belongs to her.

"In the evenings, Lucy can usually be found smoking and sipping from my cordial snifter."

Back when I started this blog Lucy was a rascally eight-year old terrier with boundless energy for five minutes at a time, followed by two to three hours of naptime to compensate for the energy spent during those five minutes. Now she is approaching her 12^th birthday with grays sprouting around her muzzle and with those grays an acquired sense of maturity. For instance, the five minutes of energy has now been downgraded to two minutes. Her naps have lengthened to entire mornings and entire afternoons. While in the evenings, when I arrive home from work, she can usually be found in an easy chair next to the fireplace, wearing my robe, reading my newspaper, smoking my pipe, and sipping from my cordial snifter.

Over these 12 years her actions have become predictable in many ways. For instance, scratching at the back door means she wants to go out. Scratching again on the outside of the back door means she wants in. Whimpering before my chair in the evening means it's time for her nighttime treats. While snorting in a disgusted manner at her food dish means she's not happy with tonight's dinner selection of dog food and would much rather have half of my meatball sub.

So I was surprised when I discovered, just recently, that Lucy has come up with a new trick. A number of times she has been found sitting in the center of the kitchen floor with her back turned to her dog dish. Sometimes the dish was full of food; sometimes it was empty. Hmmm? I thought. I wonder what this is all about.

Next I realized that she wasn't so much sitting with her back toward her bowl, but rather she appeared to be staring at the window above the kitchen sink. I figured that perhaps she saw something outside ... perhaps a squirrel or a bird in a tree, or a meteorite or a UFO hurtling through the sky. Hmmm?

Then it hit me. She wasn't staring out the window. She was staring at the sink below it. Hmmm? I glanced over at her water bowl on the floor behind her. It was empty. She was out of water. She was thirsty. Yet, instead of staring at an empty water bowl, she was going right to the source, to the very place from whence the water came! How, after nearly twelve years, did her little terrier brain finally figure this out?!

So, I took this as a sign, as I tend to take all things in life. I took this as a message from Lucy concerning the plight of our economy, and the source of our economic woes. She was telling us that we should not be dealing with the symptoms of our problems, as in an empty water dish. We should instead be dealing with the source of our problems, as in the sink. A bandage over a symptom does not cure the patient. We have to get to the root of the problem.

Thus bailing out failed policies with billions of dollars does nothing but waste taxpayers' hard earned money. For instance, automakers failed because they were meant to fail, because their policies were failed policies. The income statement does not lie. It is the measuring stick by which successful policies and failed policies are judged. And by that measurement, the automobile manufacturers failed.

Let's take a Darwinian view. Consider the Dodo bird, a creature which had limited brain power, causing it to walk headlong off the cliff of extinction like so many lemmings. The Dodo bird is now extinct because it represented a failed policy. But what if taxpayers had spent billions of dollars to save the Dodo bird, to bail it out, to protect it against extinction despite the laws of natural selection that suggested otherwise. What would that have gotten us in the end?

A bunch of dumb birds, I suppose.

As for Lucy, she's no dumb bird. She put all her money into the gold market.

Jack Sheedy

4 comments »