Perryopolis Terrorist Attack

 

 the Perryopolis drug store is the beige stone building on the right

I have the blessing to be the aunt of a very nice, and now sensible young man, who I'll call PD here. From a very young age he has been a busy, active boy, a classic case of an ADHD child. He is known in the family for the crazy ridiculous things he did as a child. Actions such as jumping on the back of a moving pickup patrolling the zoo when he was about 3, come to mind. When a mud puddle was handy, he knew just what to do: plaster himself from head to toe and brightly declare, "I'm a mud-dauber!" One day I was talking on the phone to his mom when she suddenly announced she had to hang-up as "PD is ironing the carpet." He was maybe 18 months at the time.  The iron shape on the floor remained until re-carpet time.

When PD's family moved to an obscure small town in Pennsylvania, my sister Alice commented, "That boy is going to put Perryopolis on the map." And that's just what happened several years later.

 One day Alice picked up her newspaper--we're talking the bulky big-city tome known as the Los Angeles Times here.  She gasped on seeing a small article announcing a possible terrorist incident in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania. She skimmed through it, gasped again, and immediately got on the phone to me, announcing "he's done it!". Yes, PD had put this "has-been" coal-town on the map.

The previous afternoon PD and a friend had stopped at the town drugstore for candy on their way home from school. Both were carrying their science experiments home, which resembled fishing poles with various wires snaking out of them. Fifteen minutes later when the boys left for home, pockets bulging with candy, they neglected to grab their science experiments and left them leaning against a wall in the greeting-card section of the store.


A few hours later PD was at home watching TV. A news flash reported that a suspected bomb had been planted in the local drugstore in the tiny town of Perryopolis. The area around the store had been evacuated, the bomb squad was deployed, and a special robotic bomb-disarmer had blown up the suspected bombs. PD was half paying attention when suddenly he yelled out loud, "O my gosh, O my gosh!" He ran for the phone to call his friend, then spilled the beans to his parents.

bomb squad

He and his friend confessed that the "bombs" were their science experiments, no malice intended. It was certainly the most lively, interesting day Perryopolis had seen, probably since Colonel George Washington himself strode over the woodsy acreage while scouting out a site for his grist mill . . .

bomb robot

 

Bridget's Birthday

I normally don't write about stuff like childbirth. It's highly personal, and is boring as all get-out to anyone who isn't one of the three people concerned--Mom-Dad-child. Last night Craig and I were talking about Bridget's birth--her birthday is today, October 5. He said her birth story deserved a write-up.

Bridget is my third child so I thought I knew everything about childbirth by the time she came along. Child #1 pregnancy had been the routine sick, then not sick, then disastrous delivery. Child #2 pregnancy was average until 5 1/2 weeks before his due date when I woke up that morning in labor and birthed him at lunchtime.

With #3 I was sicker than I thought possible, for just over five months. Then came a blissful six weeks of no troubles, during which I took a 2 1/2 week trip back east with my mom. We met in Pittsburgh, then traveled the northeast visiting family and had a fabulous time.

By my sixth month my iron level had dropped into the basement making it nearly impossible to even drag myself out bed. At the beginning of the seventh month it was discovered I was dilating and was ordered to stay down for the rest of the pregnancy (and to let my three-year-old and four-year-old run amok, I guess). My Mom had to come help out. I was on meds to keep labor at bay (vasodyline and phenobarbitol). It was a tough period for everyone, but then two weeks before my due date, which was October 12 (Columbus Day!), I was able to be up and around.

Dr. Coleman decided to induce me on the morning of Monday, October 5th, but Sunday evening, October 4th, I chickened out and cancelled the appointment at the hospital. I showed up the morning of October 5th at my regular weekly appointment. The doc said I shoulda come in for inducing, because this baby was going to drop out any moment, and there was no way we would make it to the hospital in downtown Boise from where we lived out in Meridian, 10 miles away. Mmmmm. He rescheduled induction for October 7.

That Monday night the teenage boy from next door, Tim J., dropped by for a visit. He left just after 8:30 and it was then that I began to feel the usual every night contractions, so I crawled into bed to rest. Craig wondered what I was doing and when I told him about the labor, he made me get in the car. I whined that it was just the usual nightly pattern but he knew what the doc had said. We left home at 8:50 p.m.

We got maybe two miles down the road and suddenly I could feel Bridget coming--I was sitting on her head! Yikes, I demanded Craig run the traffic lights--we weren't going to make it to St. Luke's! I began the last stage of lamaze breathing, the one that puts you in control of when you push out the baby, and that held us off until we pulled up at St. Luke's at 9:10 p.m. Once out of the car I doubled over with an intense contraction and was sure baby was going to enter the world on a Boise sidewalk.

I was wheel-chaired in to an examining room, despite my pleadings that the baby's head was nearly out. The nurses did what they do best, calling me honey, and saying surely I was not as far gone as I felt. They took a look, then grabbed the nearest doctor (Dr. Poole), and he delivered Bridget at 9:18 p.m.  When my neighbor, Tim, heard our news the next day, he couldn't believe we had sat in my kitchen having a casual conversation, and I had a baby 45 minutes later.

There were four miracles that worked in our favor that frantic crazy night, to get me to the hospital for delivery:

First, my mom was already at our house, so we did not have to call around for a baby sitter.
Second, it was evening. Craig was home to get me to St. Luke's, and traffic was much lighter at night.
Third, I had learned the lamaze breathing only a few months before, and that saved me from a car delivery.
Fourth, the doctor's warning from that morning (that we would not make it downtown) caused Craig to react immediately that evening.

We were deeply blessed that everything worked out so well.

Happy 30-something birthday to Bridget!

 

Burning Man For Nerds: Totality and Solartown (part 1)

Create thousands of campsites, invite tens of thousands of campers with a multitude of cars, add enough gear to fit out a small nation, fly in 400 small planes and executive jets, trek a collective millions of miles, line up hundreds of porta-potties, blend the air with smoke from local forest fires, drive in a fleet of food trucks, throw in scores of bicycles and a couple of imposing NASA satellite trucks.  Stir all together for an extended weekend, then toss that batter out into the desert around Madras Oregon to bake.  Voila!  You have Solartown USA!

11 of our family enjoyed the experience of living in the miracle of Solartown for three days and two nights, for the sole purpose of viewing our first total eclipse.  Our six months of planning paid off as we lacked for nothing.  We even bought a canopy to shield us from the August sun, and it was worth every cent.  We transported all of our food and water, pillows, sleeping bags, tents, chairs, camp-stove, etc.  No outrageously expensive hotels for us!  And no standing in line for meals either, although a few times the porta-potty lines grew long.

 our campsite: 3 tents, 2 cars, 1 canopy

We camped among thousands but it did not feel like we were in a crowd. With one exception that I witnessed, every soul behaved, most kept to themselves on their 20’x20’ campsite, and we were all united in one nerdy purpose: that two minutes of totality on Monday morning, August 21.  I expressed to our camp neighbor that I hadn't known if this event would resemble "Burning Man" or what.  She said, "It's 'Burning Man' for nerds!!"  And she was right-on.

Solartown was birthed on a Kentucky blue grass seed farm, so we were not camping in hot dust, yay.  The grass was killed in 15-foot swathes to create roads between the rows of campsites.  Each campsite was divided from its neighbor by a one-foot strip of killed grass, to create a vast green checkerboard of 20’x20’ spaces.  The sites were tight, but we got lucky by discovering a row of sites that were (mistakenly, we presume) half again as large.  That made for a more luxurious area for our group, which brought three tents, two cars, and a 13’x13’ canopy.

 photo from our drone shows the layout of Solartown; we had 2 adjacent sites for our group

Our local media relentlessly gushed with gloom and doom predictions of 12-hour traffic jams, gas supplies sucked dry, empty grocery stores, etc.  Yet we breezed down to Madras, leaving at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, and made it there in the normal 2.5 hour driving time.  We filled up with gas at Warm Springs, no problem.  What a pleasant surprise.  Contrast that to heading home on Monday afternoon.  Though our traffic-y trip stretched to nearly 4.5 hours on that leg, we relaxed and felt it was a small price to pay for the marvelous experience of viewing a total eclipse.  Madras, population 6,000, certainly knew how to roll out the red carpet for its nearly 100,000 geeky visitors!

Here's a remarkable thing about those who inhabited Solartown: they did not trash the place.  Is that the Oregonian in them?  Well, tons of them sported license plates from CA, WA & BC. On Monday late afternoon after about half the campers had cleared out, I exclaimed that there was not a single piece of garbage left in the campsites. Everyone put their trash in a sack, then either took it with them, or set the sacks in a central spot for collection.

We're looking ahead to totality in New England in 2024😃

 another view of Solartown

 before departing for home

the local fairgrounds featured push-pins and a map to show where visitors originated

Burning Man For Nerds: Totality and Solartown (part 2)

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What can I say about viewing the totality of solar eclipse, except to use every superlative there is?  Magnificent, humbling, breathtaking, spectacular, striking, spiritual, sublime, impressive, awe-some, exquisite. All of these words fall short of describing the experience. I marvel at God's creations each and every day. This aspect of the Creation will always be tops for me.

I have been in several other partial solar eclipses, first when I was about seven or eight years old. There were no eclipse glasses back in the day, so our neighbor cut a hole in a shoebox so that we could watch the progress of the moon covering the sun. 

In February 1979 there was a total eclipse in NW Oregon where we live now, only we didn't live here then. We got close to 99% totality at our home in SW Idaho. It became quite dim outside, streetlights came on, and the air had an eeriness about it. Until this August 21st, I thought our 1979 experience was pretty amazing.

But there's an enormous difference between totality of a solar eclipse, and a 99% experience. They are actually two different things. Knowing what I know now, I would journey far to participate in totality. It's worth whatever effort or cost is involved.

To note the growing darkness, feel the evening breeze kick up, reach for jacket, gape at the sun's flaming corona, behold planets and stars in all their shimmering glory, in the middle of an August morning.

 our granddaughter with her custom made eclipse glasses, easy for a 3-year old to manipulate

 eclipse has begun!

totality

One bonus about our experience that made me supremely happy, is that everyone in our family participated in viewing the phenomenon.  Three of our children and four of our grandchildren were with us in Madras, Oregon. One of our daughters lives in SE Idaho in the totality zone, and her family watched it with a gathering of friends and relatives.  Our daughter's family in Finland watched NASA's online broadcast that originated from the campground where we were staying, so in a sense, they were with us. I'm elated that everyone felt as strong as I did about embracing this (possibly) once-in-a-lifetime event.

Watch our eclipse experience here

[see part 1 to hear all about Solartown in Madras Oregon]

DNA Update

Except for one of my sisters, I now have DNA results for every immediate family member, and a couple of others besides.  On Craig's side three of his siblings have not tested.

I put all results (percentages) in a table for easy viewing and comparison.  Craig is listed twice, once with me to make sense of our children's DNA, and then again with his own parents and siblings. Those in the upper part of the table are my family; his are in the lower.

All DNA tests were done through Ancestry, except for my uncle highlighted in orange (done through 23andMe).  The geographical categories of the two companies differ slightly.  I've used Ancestry's categories and put the percentages from 23andMe in the closest matching column.  I hope that makes sense.

NOTES: Pa Uncle and Pa Aunt are my Dad's siblings.  My nephew's percentages don't add up to 100% because his sharing feature didn't work, so he related to me what he could remember.

Abbreviations are:
Irel=Ireland; Est Eur=Eastern Europe; Grt Brit=Great Britain; Iber=Iberia; Scan=Scandinavia; Fin-Rus=Finland/NW Russia; Cau=Caucasus; Wst Eur=Western Europe; Eur Jew=European Jew; Itly/Grc=Italy Greece; Balk=Balkans/Southern Europe; the 3 Asians are Asia Central, Asia East and Asia South; Mid Est=Middle East; Nat Am=Native American; Afr=Africa; Mel=Melanesia

Damascus Syria Through the Eyes of Mark Twain

Damascus, Syria, is my most cherished city, of all the wonderful cities I have visited. In 2005 I spent a month in this desert oasis exploring the fabled old city, riding the servees (sp.), hailing taxis, visiting museums and mosques and Muslim friends, wolfing down fresh-baked flatbread and chilled mint lemonade, strolling the precarious broken sidewalks, and marveling at the treasured antiquities all around. 

The Syrians of Damascus and surrounding towns were curious about us, and welcoming. America's war in Iraq was raging, and multiple times we were approached by friendly Syrians who let us know they hated George Bush / our government, but loved Americans, and wanted us to tell our friends to come visit. Some were concerned as to whether we felt safe there, and we did; they emphasized that Syria was a safe country, and it was, then.

I recently re-read Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, a chronicle of his travel in Europe and the Middle East, published in 1869. I treasure his description of the ancient-ness of the city. I have included excerpts below giving Twain's impression of Damascus (in blue), along with a few photographs of the city.

There is an honored old tradition that the immense garden in which Damascus stands was the Garden of Eden, and modern writers have gathered up many chapters of evidence tending to show that it really was the Garden of Eden, and that the rivers Pharpar and Abana are the "two rivers" that watered Adam's Paradise. It may be so, but it is not paradise now, and one would be as happy outside of it as he would be likely to be within. It is so crooked and cramped and dirty that one can not realize that he is in the splendid city he saw from the hill-top. The gardens are hidden by high mud-walls, and the paradise is become a very sink of pollution and uncomeliness. Damascus has plenty of clear, pure water in it, though, and this is enough, of itself, to make an Arab think it beautiful and blessed. Water is scarce in blistered Syria. We run railways by our large cities in America; in Syria they curve the roads so as to make them run by the meagre little puddles they call "fountains," and which are not found oftener on a journey than every four hours. But the "rivers" of Pharpar and Abana of Scripture (mere creeks,) run through Damascus, and so every house and every garden have their sparkling fountains and rivulets of water. With her forest of foliage and her abundance of water, Damascus must be a wonder of wonders to the Bedouin from the deserts. Damascus is simply an oasis--that is what it is. For four thousand years its waters have not gone dry or its fertility failed. Now we can understand why the city has existed so long. It could not die. So long as its waters remain to it away out there in the midst of that howling desert, so long will Damascus live to bless the sight of the tired and thirsty wayfarer.

Damascus, entrance to Souk Hamadyiah with Roman ruins, by sbw 2005

Damascus old city, by sbw 2005

"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own rose-bud, and fragrant as thine own orange flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East!"

Damascus old city, by sbw 2005

Damascus home, by sbw 2005

Damascus dates back anterior to the days of Abraham, and is the oldest city in the world. It was founded by Uz, the grandson of Noah. "The early history of Damascus is shrouded in the mists of a hoary antiquity." Leave the matters written of in the first eleven chapters of the Old Testament out, and no recorded event has occurred in the world but Damascus was in existence to receive the news of it. Go back as far as you will into the vague past, there was always a Damascus. In the writings of every century for more than four thousand years, its name has been mentioned and its praises sung. To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time, not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise, and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw the foundations of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their grandeur--and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given over to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelitish empire exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and flourish two thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it overshadow the world with its power; she saw it perish. The few hundreds of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering. Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies. Though another claims the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City.

1300-year-old Umayyed Mosque, Damascus, by sbw 2005

 We reached the city gates just at sundown. They do say that one can get into any walled city of Syria, after night, for bucksheesh, except Damascus. But Damascus, with its four thousand years of respectability in the world, has many old fogy notions. There are no street lamps there, and the law compels all who go abroad at night to carry lanterns, just as was the case in old days, when heroes and heroines of the Arabian Nights walked the streets of Damascus, or flew away toward Baghdad on enchanted carpets.

Ah yes, I would not have been surprised to see magic flying carpets in the skies above Damascus.

modern Damascus; photo by Rouah Challah, on Pinterest

Tragedy in Budapest Hungary, 1945-1946

 A page from Budapest, Hungary death records, 1946; Elizabeth Nobel was shot by a sharpshooter

I index thousands of records a year and most of them are straight forward births, marriages, deaths, obits, muster rolls and so on (if you don't know what Indexing is, click here).  Life's events play out on digititized pages that I download on my home computer.  It's all fascinating to me, to see naming patterns, occupations practiced in various areas, causes of death, and which ethnicities appear where and when.  It's a habit of mine to read between the lines and place the data into historical context.

Recently I was indexing Budapest, Hungary death records for the years 1945 and 1946.   The world war ended and recovery began during those years.  Well, recovery is hardly the right term for the immediate post-war period.  War-devastated European countries had years of turmoil ahead of them as survivors scrambled for food and shelter amidst the rubble of their former homes, searched for missing loved ones, and began the torturous process of punishing traitors and war criminals.

In the Budapest death records are causes of death that are not the usual tuberculosis, pneumonia, cancer, influenza and so on.  Using a weighty Hungarian dictionary given to me by a friend (a Hungarian-speaking former CIA officer) I have roughly translated these causes: shell wound; poisoning; self-sacrifice annihilation by explosion; bomb; explosion and fire; sharpshooter; Buchenwald (and other death camps); shooting by fusillade; aerial attack; explosion causing falling in (presumably the collapse of roof and walls); and execution.  Execution.  Execution.

For seven weeks beginning in late December 1944, the Siege of Budapest strangled the city.  As the one-million-strong Red Army tightened their grip, deaths from shelling and starvation mounted, eventually reaching nearly 40,000 in that short period.   In the area of Budapest where my indexing projects are taken from, the stretch from January 13-19 was particularly calamitous. 

 The arrows indicate the Red Army advance into Budapest in January and February 1945

[from www.flamesofwar.com]

The folks in charge of tracking and registering deaths were likely struggling for survival themselves.  Not until 16 months after the Siege of Budapest are the deaths from that time period entered into the register, interspersed among current deaths occurring in May, June and July 1946.  The war deaths are recorded in detail, even down to the time of day in some cases.  Where this specific information came from, I can't even guess.  And how many deaths were not recorded at all because no one knew what happened to the victims?   In wartime people disappear and bodies can remain unidentified. 

The pages in these registers show the Halasz family who died together when a shell hit their home on January 13, the Nobels, hit by sharpshooters on December 31, and Anna Perlak, who apparently gave up her life to set off an explosion in mid-January, perhaps at an arsenal belonging to the enemy.  The Reicher family home exploded on January 13, killing three inside.  A curious death is that of Alice Frances Meadows, age 64.  It doesn't give her nationality but she was in English teacher in Budapest.  She was shot down by a fusillade of bullets on January 5.  One wonders why she didn't get out of the war zone when it was still possible.  Surely her Allied connections would have been a ticket out of Dodge if she tried to leave early in the war.

The executions.  Almost all of these were Hungarian men between the age of 21 and 50.  The method or reason is not listed, but the time of death is.  It appeared that about every 15 minutes on some days in June and July 1946, executions were carried out.  Some of the men were married and / or had parents still living.  Did they collaborate with the enemy?   Steal food from their own troops to feed their families?  Perhaps they deserted the Axis lost cause and were apprehended after the war.

Budapest when the siege was over

Steeping myself in these pages brought home the tragedy of war.  Real individuals suffered tangible tragedy in one of the world's great cities.  Death did not discriminate.  Why this has to repeatedly happen to certain populations (or to anyone) is a question with no answer.