At the risk of insulting our collective historical memory, let me review the Blitz.  

In around 1939, the Nazis were marching pretty handily across Europe, invading Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the Channel Islands, toppling governments and sending whole populations of people to work camps.

Basically setting the platinum standard for European evil.

The British kept fighting (on the beaches, on the landing fields, etc., etc...) and in the late summer of 1940, Hitler sent a bomber to  London.  

It might be that the pilots got a bit turned around and only accidentally dropped a cartload of bombs on London's East End. It might be that the Germans were retaliating for a British raid that killed German non-combatants.  

In any case, the German bombs landed in the heart of the city, destroying houses and killing civilians.  Churchill responded by sending a fleet of bombers to hit Berlin. The British succeeded, and then did it a second and third time –– to the disbelief of the Germans, who thought nobody could get to Berlin.  

Naturally, the Germans were outraged. Hitler vowed that if the British wanted to drop bombs on German cities, well by gum, the Germans would drop ten times as many on British cities.

So then began the Blitz –– the German bombers targeted civilian sites, landmarks, population centers, night after night. Tens of thousands of civilians died. Hundreds of thousands were hurt.  

​The bombardment went on without much stop until the following May, when thankfully, Hitler was distracted by the sparkly-sparkly toy that was Russia.

The Blitz was meant to terrorize the British, but instead of losing heart, the Brits dug in their heels. They sent their kids to the countryside, hunkered down in Tube stations,  and continued to do business in a bombed-out city.

​It was "Britain's finest hour," not the least because with the Germans focused on civilian targets, the Royal Air Force caught a break to rebuild their fleet.

Talk about stiff upper lip. 

In Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, the Blitz is the catalyst for the heartbreaking love affair at center stage.

The novel begins in a grey and tired 1948 and runs backward, tracing the fates of four Londoners to the flash-lit beginning in 1941.

Amazing period detail, wrenching emotion, and astonishing characterization makes me wish I'd written this novel.


From Connie Willis, a pair of double-decker novels called Blackout and All Clear are set in the Blitz and focuses on how ordinary people survived it.

In Blackout, historians from Oxford in 2060 travel back in time to observe the Blitz firsthand. As one might expect, their expedition into the past goes awry and they are unable to return home.

All Clear continues the story to its suspenseful conclusion. It's not for everyone, this cement block's worth of story, but it's among my favorites. It juggles multiple storylines with humor, pathos, and a dollop of historical facts for a long immersive experience.  
​

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave turns out to be an examination of the variations of bravery –– from the courage of battle, to the strength to simply keep carrying on –– shown by a handful of Londoners.

Based loosely on the story of the author's own grandparents, the novel is engaging and bittersweet.  I gobbled it up over a weekend.

Then the Europeans showed up.

To be fair, according to the story we heard, Mormons settlers arrived in November.

They didn't know someone was already calling the Springs home.

They didn't understand that the rich grazing they found for their cattle might not last forever.

They didn't realize the life-or-death impact their cows' overgrazing would have on the Kaibab Paiutes.

By 1905, there may have been something like 90 tribe members left.

So why the fort? And why the telegraph line?

It was, so we heard in our tour, part of Brigham Young's strategic line of retreat in case the US government took up against the Mormons again.

Young would head south to Mexico if things went –– you know –– South for him. 

The fortified ranch house ("Windsor Castle" was also a handy spot to hide plural wives when the federal marshals came looking for proof of polygamy.  

But to the point. From Custer, our next destination was Badlands National Park in North Dakota. More or less due north.

Parked between the two spots is the axis mundi of motorcycle fans: Sturgis, SD. Biker bars and black tee-shirts. Not to our taste. 

Take the western route around Sturgis, and you can get to the Devil's Tower National Monument.  Take the eastern side, and you pass a state park named Bear Butte.

​Captain Winnebago has a dry sense of humor.

​He rarely indulges in age-12 bathroom jokes, unlike some others he could mention, but after perusing the map, he was unable to stop calling the place Bare Butt State Park.  

The Devil's Tower was on the Big List of Parks.

To be honest, I'd kind of thought of doing a mashed-potatoes and gravy dinner before heading to the Devil's Tower.

Maybe, you know, start intoning the five notes (re mi do do si), to get us in a Devil's Tower kind of mood.

But if you've gone off in search of America, isn't it just too too much to visit something just because of its movie reference?

​A Spielberg movie no less?

Still, it was on the list, and I didn't actually notice that we were going to drive the opposite way round Sturgis, such was the joy of hearing Mr. Linton say "Bare Butt State Park" again and again.

Considering how enormous the Great Plains turned out to be, it's heart-breaking to see what dusty little corners are left for the First Peoples. 

Oh, I know, it was war. But more than that, it was the dreary series of treaties and small pox blankets and  "assimilation" campaigns. Heavy sigh.

Bear Butte State Park has a trail up the mountain. It's a pilgrimage for some: climb the Butte for prayer, for a vision quest, to commune with the ancestors.  

On the lowest section of the trail, offerings of tobacco wrapped in colorful cloth hang from the trees.  

Signage along the way advises visitors to the park not to clean up the scraps of tee-shirt or bandana fabric tied to the branches of the trees.

These things are not trash.

As a young student, I heard the Middle English version of the prelude to The Canterbury Tales  once and was interested –– my word, how German it sounds! And it's almost comprehensible! Wow, 600 years later and the language is so different!

The second time it was quoted at me, I began to find the thing tiresome.

In case you think I am being over-dramatic, I give you a YouTube video (Go on, I double-dawg dare you!) of the poem.

You can imagine the performance when combined with a certain brand of collegiate earnestness and ardor.
 
PS: Yeah, by the way, "Old English," which is what you might think this guy is speaking? That's what people spoke before 1066 AD.

​Geoffrey Chaucer was writing around 1400 AD. If you were to make this rookie mistake when someone is fervently quoting Chaucer at you at an English department event, you might never escape the lecturing. 

I'm not sure even if "waste" is a strong enough verb. "Ravage"? "Murderize"? "Squander"?

But there is so much see –– and do –– out there in the vasty dark of the internet. 

Such as, for instance, Google's Arts & Culture selfie app. Thanks a whole heck of a lot, NPR for featuring this on the Two-Way.

Way to lead me down a primrose path!

The idea is that you snap a selfie and then Google –– bless its mighty brain –– searches for matches among its many images of art.

It's nearly instantaneous, and you get a couple of matches, which are...

Huh. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt? O-kaaay. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, my sweet skipper was innocently trying to watch the World Championships of Darts on BBC America.  

Is anyone surprised to know that not only is he glued to the television, but he knows the rules of the competition?

And so his 65% facial match is to Robert Louis Stevenson, not an unattractive fellow who certainly shares a certain mustachey something with Mr. Linton.

And with no one else handy in the living room to help me slaughter time, I turned to the way-back files.

​I knew I've been scanning photos for a good cause...

​My sister the artist as a chilly young offshore sailor of course matches a lovely painterly portrait.

And what does Eleanor have to say?  

I hoped she was the one who said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, sit here next to me."  

(Nope, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.) 

Instead she offers a non-piffling message from the wide reaches of Google herself.

Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering the strength to stare it down.  
From You Learn By Living, ​by Anna Eleanor Roosevelt p 41

Some decades later, the Would-Be Farm took shape. Roads arrived, and someone drove a few hemlock posts to mark the corners of the property.  ​​

​The earliest European owner might have put up a house. Some barns. Sheds. So might the next couple of owners (I have the title search in hand. Who knew that the Farm was part of Macomb's Purchase? I'm surprised by how interesting I find it. I never liked history class in high school.)

​But these days, the only remaining structure is an abandoned farm house. 

3) The novel is long and it's deeply and relentlessly religious –– 592 didactic pages about Christians and their duties.

​Our pre-teen heroine's duty boils down to how her sufferings are the will of God and how she needs to submit to the will of the men in her circle in order to find a happy ending...Think just a touch of Shades of Grey mixed with all the light-hearted fun of Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress. 

Goodreads reviews are sprinkled with phrases like "patriarchy by proxy" and "accepting male dominance"  and the book is described (fairly) as "preachy," "stifling," and "horrid."

We've all watched too many television cop shows in which a tiny speck of bodily fluid results in a (dunt dunt DUNN!) dramatic DNA revelation.

On tv, it takes about 5 minutes. 

For amateur genealogists, it's more like 5 weeks.

​And regrettably, there are very few attractive lab techs shooting one another significant looks under flattering lights when the results arrive in real life.

Humans have 46 genes (which comprise something like three billion DNA base pairs linked together in elegant sets of spiral ladders). The double helix.

When a mommy and a daddy love one another, they each contribute half of their DNA for the baby blueprints.

Each parent's genetic spirals unzip in half and go forth into the world as an egg or a sperm. Egg engulfs sperm; the halves mix and mingle and –– poof!

​An offspring!

​Have a cigar!