American Essence- Vol.1 Issue 2- Full Edition

American Essence ISSUE 2

Tales of the Founders Drama between prominent friends, and how they finally paid each other the ultimate compliment

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Wormslow Plantation in Savannah, Georgia. Chris Moore - Exploring Light Photography/Moment/Getty Images

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“Where liberty dwells, there is my country.”

BENJAMIN FR ANKLIN

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26 Escaping Communism A 30-year-old Tiberiu Czentye risked his life to escape communist Romania, hoping to find a brighter future for his children. Decades later, with his grandchildren in mind, he's telling his story and hoping it will help stem the tide of socialism.

30 Why I Love America Our country was, in many ways, born in crisis and war while believing in a better way of life.

32 George Washington’s Armor The forgotten story of a young Washington who saw God’s hand in the course of his life—straight from his own journals and letters.

12 06 Features 12 Colby Homestead Farms In 1630, the Winthrop Fleet brought some of the earliest settlers to America. Among them was a man named Anthony Colby. Today, the Colby family farm is going strong, still an active part of its community in upstate New York.

18 Gemstone Dreams A Romanian massage therapist took a leap of faith and moved to America to explore the glittery world of high-end jewelry.

20 Crafting Custom Furniture:

New York’s Classic Sofa Company At a factory in the Bronx, craftsmen and interior designers customize clients’ hand-crafted furniture every step of the way.

22 Believing in America The stars aligned for an appreciative group of artists and artisans to pay proper homage to the Declaration of Independence.

34 America Opposing Global Communism At one time in the 20th century, more than 60 countries were ruled by communists. The United States, as the leader of the Free World, took action to stop communism’s spread.

36 History 38 Founding Friends On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams presented to the world one of the most important and enduring statements of human rights and liberty ever written.

40 Independence and ‘Common Sense’ Thomas Paine, the man who wrote the famous words, “These are the times that try men’s souls,” won the battle for American hearts and minds during the Revolution—twice.

42 A Founder Twice Over George Clymer helped set in motion the chain of events that would ultimately explode into armed revolution. He was one of the few men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and, 11 years later, the Constitution.

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44 Arts & Architecture 46 The Capitol’s Statuary Hall A Colorado congressman gives us a tour of the grand chamber where John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln had desks.

50 Poetry, Almanacks, and

Spelling Bees The cannons of the Revolution barely ceased firing before American texts began replacing their British counterparts in schools and home libraries.

52 The ‘Academical Village’ Ten pavilions, connected by colonnades extending from a great building resembling the Roman Pantheon, rose impressively above the rolling fields of Albemarle County, where Thomas Jefferson built the university he had long dreamed of.

56 House of Beauty Master woodworker Brent Hull introduces us to different American architectural styles, starting with Colonial Revival— popularized at a time when we reflected more deeply on the country’s history.

60 Painter of the Revolution John Trumbull (1756–1843), venerated artist and soldier of the Revolutionary War, depicted pivotal moments from early chapters of American history, immortalizing our origin story in perpetuity.

68 Flickering Flames Mankind’s need for storytelling is timeless and universal. Stories connect us with myths and legends, tradition and history, telling us truths about ourselves and where we come from, and giving us common ground with our fellow man.

Illustrations by ElenaMedvedeva/iStock/Getty Images Plus • Background patterns by jcrosemann/E+/Getty Images • Cover image by BackyardProduction/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Contents

80 A Rise in Roadschooling Just because it's called homeschooling, doesn't mean the schooling must always take place in your home—children can learn from anyone and everything, all the time.

52 70 The Musical Salesman of Americanism Take a bright blend of woodwinds and brass at 120 beats per minute, topped with melodies that could have—and in some cases actually did—come from a tuneful operetta, and you have the essential Sousa march.

72 A Love of Learning 74 Homeschooling, a

Generation Later One mother’s realization that she wasn’t as patient, kind, melodious, or natural as Julie Andrews was in “The Sound of Music,” and that her children weren’t engaging, prompted her to take a sobering look at her mission.

76 No Crying in Debate Debate is the very means by which this country discovered itself, offering freedom and an accompanying explosion of prosperity the world had never before seen.

82 The Gateway to Empathy More than watching movies or television shows, more than listening to audiobooks or playing games, reading serves as a magic doorway to empathy.

84 A Homeschooling Journey Every homeschooling family faces different challenges. Tough decisions are often required when balancing the demands of work and school, finding which methods and materials work best in a domestic classroom, and dealing with each student’s learning style, talents, and needs.

86 The Magnificent South Bay Choir Through the experience of singing together in this highquality musical collaboration, children come to see and celebrate what is traditionally called “the pure, the bright, the beautiful.”

88 Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of

the Shrew’ and Today’s Sensibilities The story of a man’s choosing a loud and troublesome, but rich and beautiful, girl for his wife, and “taming” her destructive misbehavior, has been for centuries a favorite of audiences.

It still has something to say to us even today.

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78 Tears and Triumph Over

Long Division How our children feel about success, failure, and learning, depends greatly on us as parents and teachers. We must never forget that what we do and how we react will set the tone.

90 Food 92 Legendary Loaves What holds together New Orleans’s iconic po-boy sandwich?

Leidenheimer’s bread, of course.

The 125-year-old family-run bakery guards a culinary tradition that is part and parcel of the city’s culture.

96 Recipes: White BBQ Sauce Chicken Big Bob Gibson’s Barbecue, in Decatur, Alabama, has popularized a type of white sauce that goes great with barbecued meats. Radio host and foodie Erick Erickson captures its essence for a home-cooked version.

98 Recipes: Smoked Chicken Wings Piedmont Brewery, a pub in downtown Macon, Georgia, has mastered the crispy-skinned smoked wing. Erick Erickson successfully recreates it.

100 Colonial Cooking To keep America’s culinary history alive, Colonial Williamsburg maintains two operating kitchens.

Resident food historian Frank Clark said, “Learning how people eat tells about their religion, society, and quirks of life.”

104 The Great Outdoors 106 Climbing Lost Arrow Spire When a casual rock climber brought his 10-year-old son on an expedition to Yosemite’s Lost Arrow Spire—which stands 2,700 feet above the valley floor—he learned a few things about what it means to persevere.

110 The Wilds Return Eastern Kentucky used to be devoid of wildlife, but deer, coyotes, mountain lions, bald eagles, elk, and more are flourishing once again.

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Editor’s Note Dear Readers, e’re grateful, humbled, and excited by the tremendous response to our new publication—which poured in even before the first issue was printed. My colleagues agree that this magazine has been a long time coming; American Essence was born from readers everywhere asking for the true story of America, for good news featuring their fellow good-hearted Americans, and thus the magazine became a reality as quickly as the idea had formed. On the eve of the anniversary of the country’s beginnings, we’re reminded of our founding documents and the formative power of putting pen to paper.

In our History section, George Wentz explores the friendship between the two founders originally tasked with writing the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were friends before they were fierce political rivals, and later became friends again. They died just hours apart on our 50th Independence Day, each rumored to have referred to the other with his last breath (p38).

America’s ideals are those that move people from all around the world. Spanish artist José-María Cundín’s father often joked about how his birthday coincided with America’s. Cundín himself had lived under a dictatorship in Spain, so he was moved when he read the words of the Declaration of Independence, and spent three years engraving a facsimile (p22).

The founding of the nation was captured in more than words.

John Trumbull was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and a skilled painter—his rendering of Congress receiving the Declaration of Independence is well known. The prolific artist’s works capture the birth of a free and independent country, and a new chapter in world history (p60).

We hope you will join us on this journey.

Catherine Yang

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Illustrations by Michelle Xu and rustemgurler/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images

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American Essence PUBLISHER Dana Cheng

E DI TO R I AL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Catherine Yang

ARTS EDITORS

Sharon Kilarski Johanna Schwaiger Jennifer Schneider Robert Mackey

HISTORY & LITERATURE EDITOR

Channaly Philipp

FAMILY & EDUCATION EDITOR

Crystal Shi

FOOD & WINE EDITOR

Annie Wu

ARCHITECTURE & INTERIORS EDITOR SMALL FARMS EDITOR

José Rivera

TRAVEL EDITOR

Cary Dunst

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Ben Zgodny

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

Tynan Beatty

STAFF WRITER

Skylar Parker

CR E AT I V E CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Justin Morgan

DESIGNERS

Ingrid Phillips Tianzhen Xiong Kathy Sow

ILLUSTRATOR

Fiarbei Yauheni

PHOTO EDITORS

Putu Prawira Adi Duta Daniel Ulrich

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Chantelle Doucette Tal Atzom

CO N T R I B U TO R S Erin Tallman, Vance Hawk, George Wentz, W. Kesler Jackson, Ken Buck, Bob Kirchman, Brent Hull, Kara Blakley, Cary Solomon, Chuck Konzelman, Kenneth LaFave, Evelyn Glover, Sam Sorbo, Charles Mickles, Juliette Fairley, Gina Prosch, Jeff Minick, Raymond Beegle, Gideon Rappaport, Melanie Young, Erick Erickson, Alexandra Greeley, Benton Crane, Chris Musgrave

O F F I CE & CO N TACT 229 W 28th St, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10001

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Features “America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.”

All cover page illustrations by bauhaus1000/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images

R A L P H WA L D O E M E R S O N , E S S AY I S T A N D P H I L O S O P H E R

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KI N DN ESS I N ACTION

Train Conductor Returns Rings Worth

Upon receiving the returned rings, Eleasian gave a heartfelt hug to the assistant conductor in appreciation.

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onathan Yellowday, assistant conductor, was working the 6:11 p.m.

Long Island Railroad (LIRR) train from Penn Station, New York, to Port Washington, when he discovered a tray of engagement rings, valued at $107,000, in a plastic bag. The rings belonged to Ed Eleasian, a jeweler who runs his trade in an office in Midtown Manhattan. Eleasian had left the rings on his way home on April 22. The LIRR conductor turned in the package to the Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) police as soon as possible. “I got on the next train going back to Penn, turned it in, and the rest is history,” said Yellowday in a press release.

Eleasian and his wife took the LIRR to Penn Station on the Friday after-

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noon of April 23 to retrieve the lost items. There, they were met there by Yellowday and LIRR president Phil Eng. “Not only did you find and return these 36 rings, but just think about the happiness of 36 couples down the road that will be joined together in happiness, and they will have a story to tell,” said Eng. “You treated this as you should have, and it is another proud day for us at the railroad.” Upon receiving the returned rings, Eleasian gave a heartfelt hug to the assistant conductor in appreciation.

“I could only imagine what you were going through yesterday when you realized that you didn’t have your jewelry,” Yellowday told him. “You know when you get on the 6:11 you are in good hands.”

(L-R) Chantelle Doucette, Noppadon Daodas/EyeEm/Getty Images, NoSystem images/E+/Getty Images

$107,000 to Passenger

Ohio Couple Opens Home to 100 Foster Children

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Identical Twins Reunited After 36 Years

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dentical twin sisters, who were separated at birth, recently met each other for the first time on their 36th birthday, after decades of living separate lives.Molly Sinert and Emily Bushnell, born in South Korea, were adopted by two different families. Sinert was adopted in Florida, while Bushnell lived in Pennsylvania. Until recently, each sister had no idea that the other even existed. The curiosity of Bushnell’s 11-year-old daughter Isabel led to the discovery. Isabel “wanted to do the DNA test because [her mother] was adopted," she told Good Morning America. "I wanted to find out if I had more family on her side.," she added.

Sinert also decided to have a DNA test, and she was stumped by the results. “I clicked on the close relative and didn’t understand it,” she said. “‘You share 49.96 percent DNA with this person. We predict that she is your daughter.’ This wais obviously not right, because I have never gone into labor, I don’t have children,” she said. She reached out via email, and learned it was her twin sister’s daughter. The twins then agreed to meet on their 36th birthday. “Although I have family who love me and adore me and haves been absolutely wonderful, there was always a feeling of disconnection," said Bushnell. "Finding out that I had an identical twin sister just made everything so clear. It all makes sense.”

The twins' reunion was witnessed by ABC, during which the sisters said, “It is like looking in a mirror.” “My life changed,” Sinert told ABC. Bushnell couldn't hide her joy: “A hole was immediately filled in my heart.”

n Ann and Al Hill’s home hangs a sign: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers.” Ann is 78 and Al is 79; they were both born in Georgia, but only met when they moved to Cincinnati and attended the same high school. She wrote to him after he was drafted into the military, and sent him baked goods when he was overseas; they’ve been married now for 53 years.

When their two daughters went to college, the home felt empty. To open their home to children who needed it was a simple matter for the Hills. “You know what you learn?” Al told The Enquirer. “There are so many people with nowhere to go.” The Hills were strict, but they governed with love, fostering nearly 100 girls for about three decades—and only stopping last year. The girls still call, and some even visit for Thanksgiving.

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uring the peak of the pandemic, schools were closed and many of their fields were neglected, but Fort Hood’s Lori Harrison took it upon herself to mow, weed, and clear an overgrown softball complex so children could have a place to play. Harrison was recently awarded for her volunteerism, to her great surprise. “I just see a need and I fill it,” she told Fort Hood Sentinel. Harrison volunteered 800 hours of her time over the past year—she's been an Army Volunteer for more than 24 years. Like Harrison, many across the country saw new needs during the pandemic, and unconditionally stepped up to fill them.

In Gunnison County, Colorado, Arden Anderson immediately lent his decades of emergency-response expertise when the County needed to respond to the pandemic, volunteering to manage hundreds of volunteers across all the departments that would need help. “We knew that we were going to need some volunteer help from the beginning,” he told Crested Butte News. “Typically in an emergency, if we have a need, we will reach out to an adjacent area for mutual aid. And that works for a wildfire or a chemical spill that is just localized. But in a worldwide pandemic, everyone was in the same boat. We

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really weren’t sure how many people would answer the call for volunteers.” Quite a few, as it turned out: since March 2020, 758 people together gave more than 25,000 hours of their time. Anderson himself volunteered for 460 days, and was recently honored by the county for his tireless work. “I don’t think that volunteerism is something new in the Gunnison Valley. But I think that we benefit here from people who have more of a sense of community, and know that we don’t have the big bucks of a larger city ... so over the years, more and more people have gotten in the habit of helping out, and that culminated with the pandemic. But when you look at the number of people who show up for clean-up days, for the Center for the Arts, for trail building, for the Wildflower Festival—you see that.”

As states continue to open up, many organizations across the country are putting out calls for volunteers to make up for lost time and meet new needs.

Young volunteers have done their part too. Delaware recently awarded 10 individuals, four groups, and five leaders for youth volunteer service, noting that 3,544 young people together contributed 643,863 hours last year: “in economic terms, these volunteers contributed $29 million in service to Delaware [over the past year].” These young people collected and delivered food and necessities, sanitized and landscaped public facilities, found creative ways to enable birthday and other celebrations during social distancing, and raised money for various programs. “Their commitment is helping us to build a stronger community through volunteerism, as well as to develop the next generation of leaders,” said Kanani Hines Munford, Executive Director of the Governor’s Commission on Community and Volunteer Service.

(L-R) South_agency/E+/Getty Images, Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/DigitalVision/Getty Images, photopeak/Moment/Getty Images, Catherine Ledner/DigitalVision/Getty Images

Thanking the Pandemic Volunteers

Woman Reunites With Good Samaritan Who Saved Her Life

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essica Hicks, a California woman, grew up with very little knowledge of where she came from, until a search for answers proved fruitful. Recently she met the man who found her 30 years ago, when she was a newborn with her umbilical cord still attached, abandoned in the bushes. Now a mother of six from Moreno Valley, Hicks took the kindhearted Isaac Oliva by surprise when she called him in late April to confirm his identity.

Upon learning that Hicks was the baby he found wrapped in blankets behind an Irwindale building back in 1990, Oliva was overwhelmed, reported KABC-TV. "I was just full of emotions, and my jaw just dropped," Oliva told the news outlet. Meeting on April 28, Hicks and Oliva embraced, and swapped impressions of the amazing story that brought them together.

Glenn Purbaugh, the now-retired Irwindale police detective who investigated Hicks's case, also attended the reunion. The Irwindale Police Department shared photos in a social media statement, of the trio standing at the exact spot where Hicks was found. "We have to admit that we love a happy ending," the police department wrote.

While overwhelmed, Hicks said the reunion helped complete the mystery of how her life began. Weighing 9 pounds, 4 ounces when she was found, sunburned but healthy, Hicks was dubbed "Jane Doe" by the media and the hospital that took her into its care.

Never reunited with her birth parents, at 15 months of age she was adopted by a woman named Julie Swallow, reported KABC-TV. "She was a blessing from God and L.A. County," Swallow told the news outlet. "I love her very much, like she was my very own."

Surfer Saves Man From Rip Current

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n ash-spreading ceremony almost turned tragic on May 21 in Corolla, North Carolina, when one of the deceased's family members became caught in a rip current at the beach, surviving thanks to a local surfer. Dennis Kane, 71, his daughter Shannon Kane Smith, and another 40 family members had gathered to spread the ashes of Dennis's deceased daughter, Kerry Kane, into the sea. Kerry, who had died a year earlier at age 41, was fond of the Outer Banks beach, so the family chose it as her final resting place.

Kerry's ashes were contained in a biodegradable urn, which was to be dropped to the ocean floor. “That is when my dad, my sister Kelsey, my sister Lauren, and I walked into the ocean with the urn,” Shannon told ABC. After several minutes at the beach, though, the tide started getting rough and moving in fast, and the family decided to get out of the water.

Upon moving inland, Dennis noticed that the urn had not sunk properly, as it should have, so he went back to push it down. “You can imagine how emotional, upsetting that might have been for anybody, it certainly was for him,” said Michael Kane, his younger brother. “I think he was distressed that the urn was still floating in the ocean, and he did not want it to wash up in the shore.”

At that point, the tides became quite rough, and the farther out Dennis waded, the more dangerous it became. Soon realizing that he was caught up in a rip current, the family began calling out for help. Luckily, a nearby stranger was stowing some beach rentals at the business where he works. “I turned around, I knew I had a board close by, went and got that,” said the rescuer, Adam Zboyovski.

In a rescue mission that lasted around 40 minutes, Zboyovski managed to reach the flagging older man, who was near drowning, and pull him to safety. “I don’t know, I am glad they could still have their father, brother, and grandfather,” Zboyovski said. “It sometimes brings a tear to my eye.”

After the rescue, Shannon praised the courageous man for saving her father’s life. “Not all heroes wear capes, sometimes they have surfboards,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “He is an angel. Please help me make this go viral.”

F E AT U R E S S M A L L FA R M S

Colby Farms

The American Spirit, Alive and Well Colby Homestead Farms in upstate New York will be passed on to the eighth generation of a family that can trace its American roots to 1630, from some of the earliest settlers of the Winthrop Fleet WR IT TE N BY J O S É R IVE R A / PH OTO G R APH E D BY DAN I E L U LR I C H

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magine a company that has been around for as long as the United States Capitol, is as old as West Point Academy, and is still family-owned and -operated today. There’s such a farm in Spencerport, New York, conducting business 219 years after its founding. In the beginning, it was a small family farm started by several brothers who bravely traveled from Salisbury, Massachusetts, to Western New York, where they purchased land and began clearing that land for a farm.

For 219 years, Colby Homestead Farms has continued farming while living and participating in their community. They cultivated the land decades before the town was founded, and they’ve been contributing to local community, business, government, and faith-based activities for the past two centuries.

Addressing the challenges and opportunities of each generation hasn’t always been easy, but from the American Civil War to World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the present day, the Colby family has remained active in their community in many ways.

decision to move west, to what was then an undeveloped part of America. The original family home was donated to the Bartlett Cemetery Association, in 1899, as a memorial to the Colby and Macy families.

Several brothers made the trek to Western New York in the early summer of 1802. While clearing the land they bought, they used the fresh lumber to build a new family home. There was little time for them to rest though, because as soon as they finished building they rushed back to Salisbury—just in time for Thanksgiving—and had their families pack all their belongings and load up wagons for a perilous journey. The Colbys took off just after the new year. It should be noted that, at the time, there were neither heated interiors nor snow tires—they traveled by horse-drawn carriage.

They raced to Mount Morris, New York, trying to beat the spring so they could cross the Genesee River while it was iced over. Since the route had no bridges back then, had the ice melted, the Colbys would have been stuck until the following winter.

They made it across the river and arrived at their new home ahead of the spring planting season. In the early years of the farm, the Colbys focused on increasing the arable land area and building more houses for the brothers and their families. Up until the 1800s, the brothers and their children farmed and did their best to slowly improve the land and grow enough food for their own needs. At this time, the area was also gaining other farmers, and the community started developing into the towns seen today.

1600s to 1800s: Earliest Beginnings

The Colby family can trace their lineage back to a man named Anthony Colby who came to America among the earliest settlers with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. Sometime later, around 1640, Anthony settled in Salisbury, where he planted his family’s roots. The Colbys remained there for approximately 150 years until they made a difficult and dangerous

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Seventh-generation head of Colby Homestead Farms, Robert Colby, in the building-sized refrigerator where cabbage is stored until ready for market.

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1800s to 2000s

RIGHT The dairy

farm portion of the business has some of the strictest protocols for ensuring and maintaining quality when getting milk products to market. They’ve incorporated a robotic milking station that uses lasers and state-of-the-art robotics to locate, sanitize, and milk the cows.

In the early 1860s, one brother’s grandson, Oscar Colby, was serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War. While performing his duties, Oscar was wounded—shot in the leg during a battle—but a fellow soldier dragged him from the field, saving his life. Oscar asked the man his name and promised he would name his first son after him.

Oscar returned to the farm after the war, with shrapnel remaining in his leg because he hadn’t sought medical attention for the wound. That decision may also have helped him survive; at the time, many soldiers didn’t die from their wounds directly, but rather from infections that took hold after receiving medical treatment.

The Colby family has had its morals and values centered on their faith, family and community from the very beginning. From being involved in the development of governance at the local, county, and state levels, as towns sprung up around them, they served as Justices of the peace and postmasters, among other posts. Through the decades and every generation, the Colby family has volunteered, served, and worked with the community at all levels to improve the lives of those living around them.

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the early 1930s had a massive impact on the family. At that time, the entire American economy was faltering, employment was almost nonexistent, and basic necessities like food were hard to come by.

The Dust Bowl was a phenomenon during which a major drought struck the Great Plains. High winds compounded the situation, causing massive dust storms to sweep across American cities, including Chicago, New York, and St. Louis. Everything was left covered in dust—some of which originated from as far away as Oklahoma, Texas, and even Colorado. During those hard times, the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Colby family farm helped them grow, as they took their products directly to customers, selling on street corners in nearby larger cities. This method saw the farm prosper during a time when many farmers were los-

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ing their livelihoods and moving to cities in hopes of finding work in factories.

Hard times never last but hardworking people do. It was due to the family’s industrious nature that their farm grew and diversified. They grew new crops, took up dairy farming, added chicken coops, modernized certain aspects of their thenover-100-year-old farm, and laid the groundwork for a brighter future.

By the 1970s, the seventh and current head of the farm, Robert Colby, had further expanded and modernized the farm with animal husbandry, new equipment, technologies to improve land management and utilization, more efficient methods of managing the growing dairy operations, and even storage and refrigeration to help preserve certain types of crops.

2000s and Beyond

The Colby’s have continued to develop the farm with innovations and improvements, and the future looks bright. Today, a visitor to Colby Homestead Farms might find Fitbit-sporting cows navigating a maze as they make their rounds to the milking robots they’ve been trained to comply with or any number of other new farming techniques aimed at efficiency and higher yields.

Some things are in the experimental phase— while the milking robots complete their tasks on a regular basis, they’re responsible for only a small part of the farm’s entire dairy business for the time being. To begin with, the robotic dairy program monitors cows in the test facility. The cows wear devices similar to Fitbits that monitor certain health vitals and count each cow’s daily number of steps, as sometimes this can be an important indicator of an animal’s health. This data is all fed into a computer and tracked. The cows are taught to run through a series of one-way gates to get to the milking station.

The course is more like a maze, and the cows are guided along until they learn the way through—and like any good maze, there’s a prize at the end. Cows earn a slightly sweeter feed for making it through

F E AT U R E S S M A L L FA R M S

A visitor to Colby Homestead Farms might find Fitbit-sporting cows navigating a maze as they make their rounds to the milking robots they’ve been trained to comply with.

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the maze and getting milked. The treat provides an incentive for cows in the program to come and have their milk collected, motivating them to run the course and stay healthy.

One robot is responsible for cleaning, sanitizing, and actually milking the cows. It uses state-of-theart technology to locate a cow’s udder, sanitize it, position the milking tools, collect milk, and mea-

TOP & FAR RIGHT

The farm also uses technology to improve productivity and yields.

BOTTOM LEFT & RIGHT

The family logo was designed by Robert Colby’s mother and is still in use today; Sarah, an eighth-generation Colby, manages the dairy farm, marketing, and most administrative duties.

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sure the volume gathered from each cow. Afterward, the robot rewards the cow with a sweet treat.

Another robot is similar to a carpet-cleaning machine, except this one pushes cow manure into troughs along the floor; several times a day the troughs get cleaned, after which the manure is transformed into fertilizer to be used in the fields at a later date.

This is a pilot program being evaluated for future use.

F E AT U R E S

Robert is now getting ready to hand the torch to the next generation. In this case, one of the people who’ll be taking over the farm is his daughter Sarah.

She has been managing the dairy farm for the last few years while developing her skills in human resources, management, and marketing. Day-to-day, she runs the entire dairy part of the business. She handles most of the hiring and training of employees and is

handling more of the paperwork side of things as well.

She’s not alone, as there are also other family members working on the farm. But even as Sarah prepares to take over the farm, she’s also a mother.

And while her children are young now, there’s no doubt that the Colby family farm will celebrate its third century as a working farm and business, still being run by the same family eight generations later.

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Gemstone Dreams How a Romanian immigrant discovered a new path in America WRIT TE N BY AN N I E WU

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orian Filip was a massage therapist in 2009, working aboard the Seabourn Odyssey on its maiden voyage around the Mediterranean. After some years in the industry, he had developed aches in his neck, shoulder, and hands that were increasingly painful, and thoughts of quitting were on his mind.

“I said, ‘If nothing works, I’ll go to the army—I’ll go spend five years there, and they’ll give me a pension after.’”

One fateful day, Filip was assigned to take care of one of the cruise passengers, Brian Albert, who had booked a spa appointment. The two struck up a conversation about life plans. Albert is a wholesale jewelry dealer, with an eye for spotting beautiful things from a young age; when he was 16, he started buying up trinkets at junk shops and selling them to family and friends.

Albert invited Filip to come to New York and learn the trade. Filip was unsure if this was his path, but Albert encouraged him.

“He asked me, ‘What do you like in life?’ And I said a few things that I liked,” such as cars and watches, Filip said. “He said, ‘If you like and understand those things, you’ll understand jewelry too.’”

Albert tends to buy from estates and other dealers, so as to procure for his clients one-of-a-kind items they haven’t seen before. He also taught Filip the importance of maintaining long-term relationships with clients—Albert is the kind of person who would throw cocktail parties for cruise staff, or meet a maitre d’, become fast friends, and sometime later end up on a vacation in Hungary together.

“We have been dealing with the same people ... for 30, 40 years, and even longer,” Albert said.

There are plenty of fascinating stories from traveling around the world in search of beautiful jewelry.

Albert recounted a time when he was visiting Turkey while on a cruise trip. He walked into a local shop and began chatting with the store operator.

“He pulled the box out of the safe and in the safe were some of the prettiest things you ever saw. There was a sautoir necklace with pearl and diamond tassels,” Albert said, getting excited as he recalled spotting the rare find. At the time, Albert didn’t have any money with him and had to return to the cruise ship soon, but the shop operator let Albert take the piece, telling him to send a check to his sister in the United States.

Sometimes “there’s this feeling you get when you do business with people, there’s a certain comfort level,” Albert said. Filip and Albert both deeply believe it was destiny that led to these seemingly happenstance discoveries—and also brought them together.

“When I met Brian the very first time, I had the feeling I knew Brian a long time already. ... I guess people connect at the right time,” Filip said.

American Dream

Filip took a leap of faith; about three months after that cruise, he flew to New York from his home country of Romania.

“In the beginning, I couldn’t really tell what was costume jewelry or what was really fine jewelry,” he said, referring to jewelry made with imitation gems or inexpensive materials, versus pieces crafted with precious metals and gemstones. “It was a little confusing.” Albert brought Filip to trade shows, antique shows, and estate sales, showing him the ropes of how to procure exquisite pieces for a bevy of Madison Avenue fine jewelers.

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A New Venture

In 2010, Filip experienced his next life-changing event. While having dinner at a restaurant with Albert, he met the hostess, Alexandrina, who was

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As believers in traditional craftsmanship, they hope that more ordinary consumers will make wise investments and buy old.

ABOVE Dorian

and Alexandrina Filip, the couple behind DSF Antique Jewelry, at their apartment in New York City.

Alexandrina is wearing vintage Chanel earrings.

Chantelle Doucette

working part-time there while pursuing a career in fashion. The two immediately connected, having both come from former Soviet countries— Alexandrina is from Moldova. Although they were good friends from the start, it was a business trip to Australia that made Filip realize how much he missed Alexandrina. The couple grew closer, and in 2015, they were married.

Around 2013, Filip and Albert opened a retail shop for the first time, DSF Antique Jewelry. With Alexandrina on board, the shop expanded its offerings to vintage designer handbags, costume jewelry, and other accessories. Albert does much of the sourcing, while the couple handles day-to-day operations. Amid the pandemic, they had to close the physical store, but have kept their online shop going.

As believers in traditional craftsmanship, they hope that more ordinary consumers will make

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wise investments and buy old. Antique pieces don’t have the costs of manufacturing or advertising in their price tags, and thus represent greater value for the money. Alexandrina said that among their clients, “the younger generation are more responsive to this ... because they want a part of history, they want something that nobody else has. And it’s fashionable.”

Albert said that from his experience, antique pieces tend to exhibit finer workmanship: “They’re made by hand, they’re one of a kind.” People also cared for and maintained their valuables back in the day.

“Years ago, people bought things and they took care of them. That’s why so many of the old pieces that we buy, that come from the original families, are so well-preserved and loved—because they appreciated that.”

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Crafting Custom Furniture

he design company Classic Sofa was a family business with over 20 years of experience producing handcrafted bespoke furniture by the time it was handed down to a second generation in 2007.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. The United States suffered a subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 that would lead to a global financial crisis the following year. The challenge of a major recession proved too difficult to overcome, and Classic Sofa’s owners had to put the business up for sale in 2012.

One person’s misfortune can become another’s gain. Blake Anding didn’t set out to become a furniture designer. In fact, he studied biomedical engineering and worked in finance for many years—until he decided he needed to make a life change. In 2012, he saw Classic Sofa for sale and, despite having no experience in design, bought it.

He had a lot to learn, but he knew what he had to do to revive the company’s roots as a leader in the custom upholstery industry.

“When I took ownership, I called people who worked with Classic Sofa in the past and picked the best upholsterers and the two best framers to come back to work with us,” Anding told American Essence in a phone interview. Besides sofas, the firm also customizes upholstered chairs, pillows, and draperies.

Many of the craftsmen started young and learned from family members in the trade. The worker with the least experience at Classic Sofa still has more than ten years’ experience, while the staff with the most has worked for 50 years, with an average of 30 years. “Some of them started very young in a for-

New York’s Classic Sofa Company Classic Sofa’s in-house craftsmen and interior designers—including the company’s own president— customize the furniture-making process every step of the way W R I T T E N BY E R I N TA L L M A N

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LEFT An elegant

velvet sofa by Classic Sofa.

Courtesy of Classic Sofa RIGHT

Craftspeople working at Classic Sofa's Bronx factory in New York City. Chantelle Doucette

eign country and migrated to the United States,” he said. There was a Jamaican Jewish artisan, William Jobson, who mentored Anding in how to do framing and tufting, as well as Denise Ramirez, who taught him how to do upholstery. “She first came for a job at this factory when she was 12 years old. She put tons of makeup on to look older, but the owner at the time came up to her and, with just the tip of his finger, swiped it off her cheek and told her to come in a few years when she was older.”

Anding has grown the business over the last ten years and has had the pleasure of watching it flourish. The firm has worked with renowned interior designers on high-profile projects—providing upholstery to the Trump SoHo hotel (now The Dominick hotel); sofas and cushions for the rooms in The London NYC hotel (which has since been rebranded a Conrad hotel); and a sofa and loveseat for talk show host Andy Cohen’s Manhattan apartment.

But what the company is most proud of is its quick lead times. After receiving the fabric, it can produce and deliver completed projects in three to four weeks, compared to the average 12 to 16 weeks for competitors. “It’s unheard of in our industry. It’s a very fine-tuned machine because we have the right people working on the projects: getting materials in, for example, so projects get delivered quickly.”

He mostly works with clients in the tri-state area as well as Florida and California, as the vast majority of his clients have homes in the United States, but he has also shipped furniture to Paris and London.

The firm only does 100 percent custom bespoke, from fabric to wooden pieces, for residential and commercial projects. The furniture is bench-made, meaning produced to requested design specifications, and manufactured locally in the Bronx by master craftsmen. “I work in the factory with them to ensure the quality of our products every step of the way,” Anding said.

Before going to the showroom, clients can submit ideas to the company via its website, so when they arrive at the firm’s Manhattan design center, they’ll only need to work with interior designers to determine specific details such as seating dimensions, cushion densities, and fabric selection. Another major selling point is that the company offers a lifetime guarantee on frames and springing.

Clients can request an in-home consultation with a member of Classic Sofa’s design team and get assistance on style, cushion fill, and fabric choice for a new piece or reupholstery for an existing piece. The company also has a whole host of fabric partners, including Brunschwig & Fils, Coraggio, Designtex, Ralph Lauren, and many more. These brands have

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their own custom furniture collection with Classic Sofa—for the clients who aren’t looking for a fully unique product.

Uniqueness, though, is Classic Sofa’s specialty.

The more challenging the project, the more fun Anding has when transforming clients’ ideas into products. According to Anding, that’s the best part of the job.

“One of my favorite projects was for actress Mary-Louise Parker’s new Brooklyn residence. She wanted a [Vladimir] Kagan-inspired piece but with loose seat cushions for comfort. Most importantly, the piece was oversized, stretching across her entire living room.” Anding needed to trace out a sectional design with the perfect curvature and proportional size to fit the aesthetic and size of the room. The sofa had to be designed and produced in pieces and upholstered onsite.

“Designing bespoke furniture is about understanding your client so you can distill what they see as beautiful into each piece that you make. Most importantly, this is a labor of love, from drafting the initial design, through framing and upholstery, to seeing smiles on client’s faces on delivery,” he said.

Erin Tallman is the editor-in-chief of ArchiExpo e-Magazine, an online news source for architecture and design professionals. She is based in Marseille, France, and enjoys cycling around Europe as a way to soak up the culture, discovering hotel gems along the way.

F E AT U R E S

Believing in America The stars aligned for a group of artists and artisans to pay proper homage to the Declaration of Independence WRIT TE N BY AN N I E WU

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ack in 1992, artist José-María Cundín, originally from the Basque Country, Spain, released a hand-engraved facsimile of the United States Declaration of Independence, after three years of hard work and collaboration with craftsmen from his homeland—a papermaker and a renowned metal engraver. But the project didn’t draw broader interest from the American public.

Sara Fattori, who owned a fine art gallery in Palm Beach, Florida, before starting her interior design business, knew of Cundín’s work, but it wasn’t until her father’s passing, around 2007, that she pondered more deeply the meaning of the country’s founding document and the possibility of promoting Cundín’s hand-engraved version.

Her father had fought in World War II and was part of an aviation force in the Normandy invasion. “The reality of war,” she said, and the sac-

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rifices made by previous generations to preserve freedom, moved her.

The Perfect Frame

Around 2014, when an opportunity arose to donate a Cundín engraving for an auction event benefiting the Carson Scholars Fund’s initiative to promote literacy in low-income neighborhoods, Fattori began searching for a frame worthy of encasing the document. While researching online, she discovered Marcelo Bavaro, a fourth-generation historical frame maker based in New York, whose Italian family inherited a century of craftsmanship in carpentry and gilding. Fattori instinctively knew he was the right fit.

When they met, Bavaro said the Declaration should be encased in a Federal-style frame befitting the time period when the original document was drafted—the

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newly formed country wanted to distinguish itself from its former ruler, so a style emphasizing simple, clean lines was popularized, contrasting sharply with ornate British detailing. “I knew I was with the right person when Marcelo said, ‘Oh, it should be in a Federal-style frame,’” Fattori said during a recent interview at Bavaro’s Brooklyn firm Quebracho Inc., which restores and makes frames for top museums, art galleries, and auction houses.

Bavaro was intrigued by the project: “I always wondered how this country was guided by this piece of paper for centuries. And everybody respects it. I come from a country where nobody respects anything.” He was referring to Argentina—his family emigrated there in the early 20th century. In the early 1980s, when Argentina was under military rule, Bavaro himself was caught in the political turmoil and jailed for writing articles that criticized the government. Due to his family’s influence, he managed to escape and was on the run for five days before crossing the Brazilian border and taking a plane to the United States, where he met up with his father, the first of his family to settle here.

Federal-style frames require incredible carpentry skills; an artisan must shape the wood into a narrow concave shape. There are few workshops left in the world that are still engaged in this artwork.

“Craftsmanship is something that is dying out,” Bavaro said. “It’s so simple to make money sitting in front of a computer; why are you going to break your hands doing what we do?”

While working on the Declaration project in 2014, Bavaro, together with Fattori and her husband, Paul, joined forces to launch a new company, Fattori Fine Frames, that would provide custom-made, handcrafted frames for people looking to frame artwork and mirrors in their homes.

The auction event that took place the following year was a success, with a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution buying the framed document.

America’s. Cundín was moved by the content of the Declaration upon reading it in its entirety. “The demand for freedom—that is the connection that I found most touching in my heart,” he said in a recent phone interview.

When he began the engraving project in 1989, out of curiosity he started researching the founding fathers who signed the document. Cundín found out that John Adams had visited the Basque Country in 1780, and had been so inspired by the local governance system that he kept it in mind while drafting the United States Constitution years later.

Adams also wrote about the “Biscay” government in his treatise, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,” stating, “While their neighbors have long since resigned all their pretensions into the hands of kings and priests, this extraordinary people have preserved their ancient language, genius, laws, government, and manners ... their love of liberty, and unconquerable aversion to a foreign servitude.”

The connection with Cundín’s homeland convinced him to look for artisans there for the engraving project. Pedro Aspiazu, who was born into a multi-generational family of engravers, hand-chiseled the plate, while a Basque company handmade the paper from pure cotton, and a Madrid company did the printing.

Cundín retained the same paper size as the original, but reduced the text size so there would be empty space—“a visual environment, to make it ... a document that everybody could receive in the mail, but in a magnificent size,” he said. The framed engraving resembles a painting, yet is humble in its quiet dignity. Cundín’s team made 1,200 copies— the first few were gifted to George H.W. Bush during his presidency, the king of Spain, and the United States Congress. Today, there are about 1,000 copies still available for purchase.

History

Paul Fattori hopes that younger generations can truly appreciate what this document means and the extent to which the signees risked their lives to publicly protest the British monarchy. “It symbolizes all that freedom, that liberty—and it’s about the people, ... consent of the people,” he said.

Sara Fattori hopes Americans neither take their freedoms for granted nor forget about the balance of powers in government. “I’m looking at a country like a family unit; like, if someone is too powerful and controlling, then the other people are not going to thrive ... and be able to flourish as a human being,” she said.

Independence Day

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT The brass

plate etched with the Declaration; engraver Pedro Aspiazu; and artist José-María Cundín with the printed Declaration.

Courtesy of José-María Cundín & Fattori Fine Frames

Cundín’s facsimile is a copy of William J. Stone’s engraving—the latter was commissioned by then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams during the 1820s as an official government copy, because Adams had grown concerned over the fragile condition of the original Declaration. In Stone’s tradition, Cundín set out to make a hand-engraved brass plate—it would be the first such engraving since Stone’s time.

Cundín always had a personal connection to America, even before becoming a citizen in 1971.

His father was born on July 4 and frequently joked about how his birthday coincided with that of

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Fourth of July

The first $2 note... was issued on June 25, 1776, making it nine days older than America. The Continental Congress authorized these “bills of credit” for the defense of America. Today’s version—launched on the United States Bicentennial in 1976, after a decade-long hiatus of the bill’s printing— depicts on the reverse an engraving of John Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence" (only 42 men appear in the $2 version, rather than the original painting’s 47).

LOCAL TRADITIONS

Bristol, Rhode Island... is home to the nation’s longest-running tradition of celebrating Independence Day—the city celebrated the very first anniversary in 1785 with the firing of 13 cannons in the morning and 13 guns in the evening—founded by Reverend Henry Wight, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Festivities in Bristol each year typically kick off long before the Fourth, starting on Flag Day, June 14, with outdoor concerts and races, block parties, a vintage baseball game, a carnival, and a Fourth of July Ball, leading up to the main event—the Fourth of July Parade (officially the Military, Civic, and Firemen’s Parade). It’s no wonder the town calls itself “America’s most patriotic town.”

Cody, Wyoming... holds its annual Cody Stampede celebration for the Fourth of July over several days as well, this year beginning on July 1 with the rodeo it’s known for, followed by concerts and parades, and culminating in fireworks at dusk on the Fourth.

Cody is 52 miles from Yellowstone National Park, and prides itself on capturing the spirit and heritage of the Wild West—after all, it was founded

by Colonel William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody in 1896.

Public Domain, Bradley Olson/EyeEm/Getty Images, Henryk Sadura/Getty Images, David Hogan/Moment/Getty Images, NSA Digital Archive/iStock/Getty Images Plus, barbaraaaa/iStock/Getty Images Plus

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Gatlinburg, Tennessee... has a full day of Independence Day celebration, beginning one minute after midnight with a parade, making it the “earliest” celebration in the nation each year. The day’s events include the Gatlinburg River Raft Regatta, where contestants enter one of two categories, either “Trash” (rafts not handmade) or “Treasure” (with handmade rafts)—anything goes, and you can even send a rubber ducky down the river.

Festivities are capped off with a Fireworks Finale downtown.

This mountain resort town lies right outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and for centuries saw Cherokee, European, and early American hunters and fur trappers along the hunting trail before officially becoming a town.

Chicago... is not unique in putting on a fireworks show, but the city boasts miles of lakefront high-rise windows, rooftops, balconies, beaches, and boats from which to view the fireworks. Navy Pier is an attraction unto itself, jutting 3,040 feet into lake Michigan—the fireworks displays launched from it create stunning reflections upon the nighttime waters below. It also boasts an innovative and unique, $22.5-million, 196-foot-tall Ferris wheel featuring 42 climate-controlled gondolas. Navy Pier hosts fireworks shows on Wednesday and Saturday nights throughout the summer from Memorial Day through Labor Day, but they save the biggest and best for Independence Day. —JUDITH M C CONNELL

Why fireworks?

The first Fourth of July anniversary celebrated was in 1777 in Philadelphia. Founding Father John Adams’s wish that Independence Day be celebrated with pomp and circumstance— “with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward, forevermore”—came to pass. He was referring to July 2, the date when delegates from 12 colonies voted for independence, but July 4 is when the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted, and what would become Independence Day.

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For Family and Freedom A 30-year-old Tiberiu Czentye risked his life to escape communist Romania, hoping to find a brighter future for his children. Decades later, with his grandchildren in mind, he’s telling his story and hoping it will help stem the tide of socialism W R I T T E N B Y C A T H E R I N E YA N G / P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y C H A N T E L L E D O U C E T T E

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arting from his wife and two sons was the hardest thing Tiberiu Czentye had ever done—harder than the upcoming 40-mile trek that would end with him crawling on the ground as he tried to evade armed guards near the Romanian– Yugoslavian border, harder than what would be months of hard labor in a Yugoslavian prison after he was captured anyway, and harder than the two years he would spend as either prisoner or refugee while crossing five countries before he finally won his freedom. “Family—that is why I left; I escaped Romania for the future of my kids,” Czentye said.

“The biggest, toughest, most painful moment of my life was when I turned off the lights and kissed my kids and my wife goodbye, because I did not know if I would ever see them again.”

Even now, from the safety of his own home in a free country, when he speaks of it—when he remembers those goodbyes—he’s moved to tears. Czentye and his family lived in communist Romania, during the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. From the beginning of this plan, he was clear about his goal: America. There, his family would have freedom and the opportunity for a better life and future for generations to come. “I studied. Many people leave and they don’t know what they’re doing or why,” he said.

“If I make this sacrifice, at least I want to leave my family in one safe place for many generations. So I studied: the population of the US, the economy, the

states, the two parties, the political power, the military power, the power of the dollar and how strong is the economy, and all these things put together.”

America’s history as a country built by immigrants was crucial for Czentye. He was migrating for his sons’ futures, and he didn’t want to bring them all the way to a new country where they would be looked down upon—and that didn’t happen in America. “I bring them here for their futures, and to feel good, not to be hurt,” he said. “I had a very strong reason to risk my life.”

He knew he was risking his family’s future as well, but he had a strong feeling that he would make it— throughout his journey, he said he must have been blessed. Man alone can only do so much, he said, but perhaps God played a part too.

The Value of Human Dignity

Circumstances were bleak under Communist Party rule in 1989 socialist Romania, when Czentye set out on his mission to escape: schools were brainwashing centers, hard work was penalized, and his sons’ futures were almost certainly shaping up to be worse than his own. But Romanians didn’t always equate socialism with dictatorship—many people in the world still don’t. First, came the promises of free stuff, allowing socialism to take hold, Czentye said.

However, once the Communist Party had power, it quickly became clear that it couldn’t keep its prom-

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ises. Then, the regime closed the borders, morphed into a dictatorship, and its unrealistic goals ended up impoverishing the nation. “Under these restrictions and these political things, there started to be a shortage of food, shortage of gas—shortage of almost everything,” Czentye said. “People were dying.”

That hit too close to home when his younger son got sick and ended up severely dehydrated. At the hospital, Czentye learned of a treatment for the virus, three daily doses of which could help his son to recover. But the medicine was produced outside of Romanian borders, and the regime refused to buy foreign pharmaceuticals. Upset, Czentye checked his son out of the hospital, despite widespread accusations that he was sentencing his boy to death. Instead, he hired a nurse and purchased the medicine on the black market—and his son got better. His enterprising spirit was clearly at odds with socialist culture.

People in Romania had three options, he said: they could work hard and do their best while remaining unable to distinguish themselves or see the fruits of their labors, they could become lazy and collect the same pay as everyone else, or they could get out. The material side of things was only one concern.

Communist schooling, from kindergarten through college, focuses on brainwashing students while glorifying the Communist Party, Czentye explained. History is rewritten, all the media is state-run, private property disappears, and your movements are monitored and restricted. “Once they have power, they tell you what to do and how to do it,” he said. But there are always people like him, Czentye noted—people who want to make their own way and show their own worth.

In order for the regime to keep up its ruse, it doesn’t stop with lies and brainwashing. The secret police turn neighbors into informants, in a country where no one is allowed to criticize the party. “If somebody, just one neighbor, tells them, ‘Well, Tibi

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said that ...’ in the morning they break down the door, take you from there, and you just disappear forever,” he said. That’s the worst part, he said: first, people turn on each other, society loses trust and faith in fellow humans, and people lose their dignity.

“People start to give you up. It starts to lose the quality and the value of the human being. I don’t want to say it because it’s not so fair, but they start to be more [like] animals, and just bend to the power.”

In contrast, family values were deeply ingrained for Czentye—growing up, he witnessed commitment between his grandparents and between his parents.

As such, he didn’t just want a nicer life for himself: He wanted a future where his sons could flourish.

Like his parents and grandparents had done before him, he wanted to lead by example and live out values worth imitating.

“That is why I left home, and left by myself. They have guns on the border and they used to shoot people—they don’t allow you to leave. I thought, ‘Please, they kill me, but they don’t kill my family,’” he said.

From Czentye’s home in Timisoara, Romania, he crossed the border into Yugoslavia, where he was caught and sentenced to what amounted to slave labor, digging holes for electrical cables. After three months, he made his escape, traveling through Austria, through West Germany, and to the Netherlands, where he was placed in a refugee camp.

While in the Netherlands, Czentye sought political asylum in the United States and petitioned Romania to let his family visit him. The timing was fortunate—the regime had been overthrown and a new government was working to establish its legitimacy—and Czentye’s petition was granted. Being reunited with his family was unforgettable. He still remembers his trip to the airport, the suspense, and the first moment when he saw his family’s faces. With tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, Czentye was finally able to hug his loved ones again.

It took a total of two years for Czentye to gain asy-

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Tiberiu Czentye and his wife Sandra at their home in South Carolina. Czentye is CEO of Allpro, a digital archiving company he built that stores and secures anything from family albums to confidential state files.

TOP LEFT & RIGHT

Czentye escaped socialist Romania so his family could live in freedom for generations; now he is continuing to fight for freedom for his grandchildren.

lum, and in 1991, he moved to the United States.

“I had two luggages, two kids, my wife, and God,” Czentye said. He landed in Portland, Maine, where his family was entitled to a year of government assistance. After three weeks, he turned it down, and the family packed up and hopped on a Greyhound headed across the country. They had their eyes set on San Francisco, a hub of opportunity and industry.

His Grandchildren’s Future

In San Francisco, Czentye worked three jobs at once, taking neither vacation nor sick leave for five full years before starting his own business. But things in California—and many parts of America— have changed since then, he said. From 2007 to 2009, Czentye would spend time traveling up and down the Southeast, looking for a new place for his family. He found it in South Carolina, and after his youngest son graduated from college— both sons studied in California, one at UCLA and the other at Menlo College—they made the move cross-country. Still, even after seeing changes firsthand in California, Czentye was appalled when socialism became a popular movement in the United States.

“I was shocked. Shocked! And very upset,” said Czentye, who today is CEO of a digital archiving company and a happy grandfather of five. “I really believe it is my duty to share my story and tell these crazy guys who like socialism that it’s not like that.”

Inspired to do more, he got involved in local politics and was recently elected executive committeeman for his county, and is looking for more opportunities to share the truth still.

However, Czentye acknowledges that it’s not all these young people’s faults that they’re endorsing socialism; rather, their parents may have failed them by not teaching them to mind their character.

The schools may have also failed them by pushing them toward expensive degrees in oversaturated

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industries, racking up loans they now struggle to pay off. Even before Czentye set foot in America, he studied the culture, and from day one his wife and he were clear with their sons: Parents are the foremost teachers in life. Police and schoolteachers have roles to play as well, but those should never supersede parental guidance. He spoke openly about socialism, communism, what happened in Romania, and the follies of human nature.

Czentye and his wife wanted to give their boys good lives, and they made clear their expectations: that the boys should use the good manners they were taught and strive for excellence—and they did, doing well in school and sports. Their sons are now raising their own families with these same traditional values. But Czentye saw that many of his sons’ friends in grade school weren’t brought up this way; without good values, a person’s character can slip, laziness creeps in, and the mentality of blaming others provides an easy out. These resentful souls take readily to socialism and its promise of free things, he warned.

A second warning sign, a tactic reminiscent of what Czentye experienced in Romania, is the divisive culture attempting to take hold in America.

“The socialists, they work very hard to divide us: to divide us by nationalities, to divide us by blue-collar workers [versus] white-collar workers, if you are a member of a political party—all of these things,” he said. But Czentye believes that truth will prevail, and if people can recognize socialism for what it is, America can stay free.

“I’ve had the chance to go [traveling] in many countries since I’m here, and since I had my company, I went back to Europe, I was in South America, I was in China, I was in Africa, [and] Japan. I can tell you, America is not perfect, but it is the best,” he said. “And from here, I’m not going to run anymore.

I’m going to fight and do what I can against socialism and for a free society.”

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W H Y I LOV E A M E R I CA

Leading With Compassion, Strength, Courage, and Dignity W R I T T E N B Y VA N C E H AW K

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am an American, and proud to be one. In an age when our history is under attack and our values called into question, I am here to say that the American way of life is valuable and worth defending.

I am willing to stake my life on that claim, and I am not alone. I work in the special operations community, and men in my line of work like to think of themselves as Spartans, but whenever someone says that, I reject it. We’re not Spartans, we’re Americans, and that is something to be proud of.

As a member of the United States Air Force, I have had the opportunity to serve alongside some of the finest airmen, soldiers, sailors, and Marines in our military. During my deployments to Afghanistan, I have grown to appreciate the history of this ancient and beautiful country. When I look across the Hindu Kush, I can see Alexander the Great’s army marching through the landscape, as well as the Persian Armies, Genghis Khan and his horsemen, Winston Churchill and the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and finally the United States. Though my experience is recent, there is a heavy history and memory here.

The men I work with have provided medical and rescue support for the U.S. Army. As such, I hear many stories of their heroism. I am proud to work with these men and see the sacrifices they make for one another.

One example is a man who recently risked his life under heavy fire from the enemy to defend and protect his brothers in arms. The enemy ambushed his team, firing shots down an alley, taking out three of his team members. He and one other man ran through a hail of bullets to their wounded teammates.

Getting ambushed immediately puts you on your heels; the enemy has the luxury of choosing the time and place. My friend was the underdog, but the love he felt for his fellow countrymen pushed him to risk his own life to save theirs. Bombs were impacting mere feet away, Afghan mud bricks being the only barrier against the explosions; get-

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ting his fellow Americans medical treatment was his priority.

But they were trapped. With no way out except the way he came, he decided to reach out to his commander to coordinate their extraction. Once their position was pinpointed, the soldiers began blowing holes in walls of buildings until they created a path out to where the patients could be transferred to the legendary Army medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) helicopters.

Refusing to abandon his patients, my friend boarded the helicopter and administered treatment all the way back to their base. In spite of this man’s courage and skill, only one of the three men survived his injuries.

My friend’s perceived failure hung heavy around him, and he prepared for the rest of the team to add their own anger and disappointment to his shoulders. But he was mistaken. The other soldiers met him with gratitude; they had been surprised by his courage and could not believe his willingness to risk his life for them. The Scriptures say “Greater love has no man than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends,” and I cannot think of a more dramatic example of what it means to be an American.

While he mourns the loss of even one American life, the men he has saved honor him as a hero.

We are a country in crisis, but this is nothing new.

We were, in many ways, born in crisis and war while believing in a better way of life. Great men have led us every step of the way, and there are great men alive today, making sacrifices and living as examples of why our way of life is worth defending, by leading with compassion, strength, courage, and dignity: the characteristics that set true Americans apart from the rest.

Americans are people who stand for what is right, and what is honorable. I have seen these men, and I have known them, and I have been lucky enough to call them my friends and colleagues. There is a legacy that we all look up to and do our best to emulate, that we should understand, respect, and continue to pay homage to.

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W H Y I LOV E A M E R I CA

We are a country in crisis, but this is nothing new. We were, in many ways, born in crisis and war while believing in a better way of life

BELOW

Soldiers at twilight during a military mission in Turkey.

Guvendemir/E+/ Getty Images

The memorials to these great men are wrongly under attack, but their deeds and the lessons we learn from them live on within us. That cannot be taken away. In many ways, this is what it means to be an American—to live as they lived and to strive every day to be the very best that we can be. Many Americans may not be able to find Afghanistan on a map, but I surely know where to find the finest of Americans.

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Vance Hawk serves in the U.S. Air Force as a combat rescue officer and lives in Yelm, Washington; his views are his own and do not reflect any official views of the USAF. Tessa Weber assisted Mr. Hawk with this article as his editor.

She is an accountant in the Denver area who loves the outdoors and volunteering with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in her free time.

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Washington’s First Battle P H O T O G R A P H E D BY TA L AT Z M O N

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he year is 1754—more than two decades before George Washington will become Commanderin-Chief of the Continental Army and more than three decades before he’ll serve as the first United States President—and the 22-year-old Washington has recently received his first military commission.

The young Lt. Col. of Virginia’s colonial militia is preparing his troops to head into events that will spark the Seven Years’ War between the French and British. Reading the situation as best he can, Washington plans an ambush—while the French do the same. “It’s all about the land, and who’s going to get the land,” said Tammy Lane, who has

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embarked on a three-film project to tell the forgotten story of a young Washington who saw God’s hand in the course of his life. Here in this moment, Washington faces his first battle and has to defend himself. “He probably shot somebody. He probably killed somebody. I figure it would be impactful.”

Lane, head of Capernaum Studios, is currently directing the first volume of the “Washington’s Armor” trilogy, with an unflappable perseverance that some of her crew have likened to Washington’s own steadfast faith. “This is real history. It’s all true. It came straight from Washington’s journals and letters—and most people don’t even know about it,” Lane said. Artistic license is taken where there are gaps in the written record, but Lane took on the project with the intention of telling true history. It’s a portrait of a flawed, yet heroic, human being. “He wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes, as all human beings do. But he had a very high, high level of integrity and duty,” Lane said.

‟This is real history. It’s all true. It came straight from Washington’s journals and letters—and most people don’t even know about it.”

TA M M Y L A N E , P R E S I D E N T O F C A P E R N AU M V I L L AG E S T U D I O S

LEFT Tammy Lane,

president of Capernaum Village Studios, with Willie Mellina, who plays George Washington.

Tammy Lane Studios

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America Opposing Global Communism At one time in the 20th century, more than 60 countries were ruled by communists. “The Free World,” led by the United States, took action to stop communism from spreading.

Whether they succeeded or not, whether they were popular or not, several conflicts were fought by American soldiers, with the stated purpose of opposing communist rule and ideology, and the nation opposed communism in other ways as well.

Following are some highlights.

1918–1919 The Polar Bear Expedition At the end of World War I, more than 5,000 American soldiers fought the communist Bolsheviks in Russia during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. In this little-remembered conflict, some 235 Americans gave their lives.

ABOVE Polar bear memorial in Troy, Michigan. Bolandera/license CC BY-SA 3.0

TOP RIGHT Medical corpsmen

MIDDLE RIGHT In Operation

assist in helping wounded infantrymen after the fight for Hill 598 in Kumhwa, Korea, on Oct. 14, 1952. Sylvester/U.S. Army

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"MacArthur,” soldiers assemble on top of Hill 742, near Dak To, South Vietnam, prior to moving out in November 1967. A purple smoke bomb is ignited in the background to guide in a helicopter. U.S. Army

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BOTTOM RIGHT The fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. GNU Free Documentation License

1947–1991 The Cold War American “containment” policy was to stop the spread of communism and counter the USSR. Nuclear arms buildups on both sides made the prospect of a “hot war” unthinkable, so the two sides faced off in proxy wars, propaganda, the space race (essentially won by the United States when men walked on the moon in 1969), and other shows of prowess.

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1962 Cuban Missile Crisis American leaders contended with the Soviets, resulting in the USSR removing nuclear missiles from Cuba.

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1983 Invasion of Grenada American soldiers landed in response to a formal appeal for help, and in the interest of protecting over 600 American nationals on the Caribbean island, leading to the overthrow of a Marxist regime.

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1989 Berlin Wall Falls The symbolic zenith of the falling of communist regimes in Europe was perhaps foreshadowed by President Reagan’s 1987 Berlin Wall Speech, in which he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” European nations ending communism at that time were Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania.

1950–1953 Korean War North Korea, backed by the USSR and China, attacked South Korea, which was supported by UN forces (mainly the United States). After some back and forth, Korea remains divided to this day. Out of the roughly 1.8 million Americans who served, about 54,000 gave their lives.

The Cold War effectively ended when the USSR formally dissolved on Dec. 26, 1991. By the early 90s, all other communist and Marxist regimes worldwide also dissolved, leaving only five communist countries in the world: Cuba, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and China.

1955–1973 Vietnam War Similar to the war in Korea, North Vietnam was backed by the USSR and China, while South Vietnam was backed by the United States and other non-communist countries. Unlike the more decisive Korean war, this war dragged on, and ultimately South Vietnam was absorbed into the communist north, while neighboring Laos and Cambodia also turned communist. About 2.7 million American soldiers served in this conflict, which lasted nearly two decades, and about 58,000 of them perished (of which about 1,600 are still listed as missing in action).

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History ‟Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.”

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Founding Friends

Bound Together by the Fourth of July WRIT TE N BY G EO RG E WE NT Z

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he United States has been blessed with many distinguished leaders. But the generation that founded our nation has a special place in the hearts of many Americans. Even among that very special generation, two of our Founders stand out not only because of their many accomplishments and their lasting mark on the country, but because their friendship helped shape its early years—a friendship that both started and stopped on the Fourth of July.

Jefferson was an erudite, tall, slender, and fearfully shy man from the rolling hills of the Virginia countryside. John Adams was a brash, short, stocky, and straight-talking man from the bustling town of Quincy, Massachusetts. Both were well-educated, having pursued arduous courses of self-study that lead to them each becoming members of the bar.

Jefferson was known for his intellect and writing ability, and was often called upon by his home state of Virginia to write important legal documents, frequently focused on human rights. Adams, on the other hand, was known for his work in the courtroom, famously taking on the defense of the British soldiers charged with murder after the Boston Massacre.

Where Jefferson was likely to engage in thoughtful analysis, Adams charged forward to take whatever course his unbending principles dictated. While Jefferson was a deist who often wrestled with the idea of an all-knowing creator, Adams was a devout Christian with puritanical tendencies. The two were polar opposites in many respects, but shared one trait: their undying patriotism and devotion to the new nation to which they helped give birth.

age of 34, he took on the criminal defense of Captain Thomas Preston and eight British soldiers under his command who faced charges of murdering five colonists in Boston on March 6, 1770, a trial history has dubbed The Boston Massacre Murder Trial.

Adams’s preparation, attention to detail, and dogged advocacy paid off. The case led to a split verdict, with Preston and six of the eight soldiers being acquitted while the two remaining soldiers were convicted of manslaughter. Adams had proven to England that the colonies were capable of administering justice, an argument Adams later advanced in advocating for America’s independence from Britain. By 1776, he had progressed from a well-known regional patriot to a respected national leader.

Jefferson, on the other hand, was eight years younger than Adams, and came to national attention when he authored “Summary View of the Rights of British America” in 1774. He became known as particularly effective in articulating the colonial position for independence from Britain, and his voice became as important as Patrick Henry’s in advocating for the colonies to separate from their mother country.

Jefferson and Adams are thought to have first met in the summer of 1776 in Philadelphia, when the Second Continental Congress appointed them to a five-man committee to write the Declaration of Independence. The other members of the committee were Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. It was John Adams who nominated Jefferson to pen the declaration in honor of Jefferson’s highly praised writing style. Together, on July 4, 1776, Jefferson and Adams presented to the world one of the most important and enduring statements of human rights and liberty ever written.

Both men viewed it as an important foundation for the creation of a truly representative and egalitarian American republic.

By 1784, three of the five men on the committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence—

Their Reputations Preceded Them

Jefferson and Adams knew of one another by reputation long before they met personally.

Adams was a public figure by his 29th year, in which he published the influential “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law” in opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765. He went on to become wellknown as a patriot. His fame increased when, at the

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Together, on July 4, 1776, Jefferson and Adams presented to the world one of the most important and enduring statements regarding human rights and liberty ever written.

Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin—found themselves together again, this time in Paris. Jefferson had lost his wife, Martha, only two years prior, and Adams and his wife Abigail became close friends with him, consoling him in his loss and treating him as family.

Both men returned to the United States where, following the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification process, John Adams served as George Washington’s vice president, and Thomas Jefferson was appointed as the country’s first secretary of state.

Crossing Political Swords

TOP LEFT

Thomas Jefferson, 1786. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; bequest of Charles Francis Adams; frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee TOP RIGHT

John Adams, c. 1815. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Despite their close friendship, the two crossed political swords. Adams believed that the United States needed a stronger central government in order to compete with the European powers of the day, while Jefferson feared that such concentrated power would lead to tyranny. Adams became an important leader of the Federalist Party, while Jefferson became a leader of the newly formed DemocraticRepublican Party.

The tension between the two reached its breaking point when they competed against one another to succeed George Washington as the second president of the United States. The race pitted the two friends against each other for the future course of the nation: Would it be the mercantile and banking dominated future offered by the Federalists or the laissez-faire agrarian democracy envisioned by Jefferson and the Republicans. The dominant presence of George Washington had been the primary force holding the country together until the end of his second term, and the vacuum left by his absence loomed over the election. The nation’s future literally hung in the balance. Given the importance of the race, it soon turned personal, with ad hominem attacks abounding. Their relationship reached its nadir.

Adams won the race, and the men barely spoke during Adams’s term. Their competition was repeated in the 1800 presidential race, which his-

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torians count among the nastiest political battles in our nation’s history. Jefferson scored a narrow victory. On his way out of office, Adams saddled Jefferson with “midnight” appointments of key officials, none more important than installing longtime Jefferson political enemy John Marshall on the Supreme Court. Their longstanding friendship came to a bitter end. They didn’t exchange a word for twelve years.

Reconciliation and Final Words

Benjamin Rush, their mutual friend and fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence, finally brought the men back together. In 1812, at Rush’s urging, Adams made a written overture to Jefferson, who responded kindly. Over the next 14 years, the two exchanged 158 letters, and their friendship and respect for one another reignited.

In a strange quirk of fate, both founders passed away on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years from when they presented the world with the Declaration of Independence. And they were still on each other’s minds. History is murky as to exact dying words of famous individuals. But legend has it that Jefferson’s last words were “At least the country still has Adams,” while Adams last words are reported to be “Jefferson survives.” Neither man was correct.

They died within hours of one another on the 50th anniversary of the day our great nation was born.

George Wentz is a partner with the Davillier Law Group in New Orleans, La. He’s a graduate of Georgetown Law School, where he served as the administrative editor of the International Law Journal. Ronald Reagan appointed him to serve in the Office of Policy Development at the Federal Trade Commission. He has had a 38-year career as an attorney in the insurance, transportation, and energy fields, as well as litigating constitutional issues in federal court. He has a love of history, the philosophy of law, and the United States of America.

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Independence and ‘Common Sense’ How Thomas Paine won the battle for hearts and minds—twice W R I T T E N B Y W. K E S L E R J A C K S O N

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n 1774, an Englishman named Thomas Paine, having met Benjamin Franklin and received letters of introduction from him, immigrated to Pennsylvania and entered the print media industry. Paine’s ties to Franklin thrust him into revolutionary circles almost immediately, and, at his American friends’ urging, in early January 1776, he published an essay called “Common Sense.”

Paine’s tract became a best-seller virtually overnight—arguably the most popular printed work ever produced in America, right up to the present.

Within 90 days of its release, it had been purchased by roughly one out of every eight adult colonists; most Americans read “Common Sense,” and if they couldn’t read it, someone else read it to them.

empire. Paine cut through such misgivings by an appeal to “common sense.”

Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America,” Paine wrote. “This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.”

“Common Sense,” too, seems to have convinced hundreds of thousands of Americans that they could be part of something historically unique, important, and earth-shaking.

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand ...

Paine’s call was for “The Free and Independent States of America.” Thousands began reading as agitators for their rights as freeborn Englishmen; thousands finished reading as agitators for outright independence.

On Monarchy

In true Enlightenment fashion, Paine’s essay used reason (or “common sense”) to excoriate the very notion of monarchy—and the men and women who wore the crown.

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Monarchs ruled by coercion, not divine sanction.

They made serious (and often criminal) mistakes all the time, even if their advisers were the ones to always take the blame. Monarchs were often stupid or brutish or unprepared, and their rule was arbitrary anyway.

Bucking Up the Continental Army

Fast forward 10 months—and the Continental Army had retreated into New Jersey. Having lost New York, and with winter approaching, “Patriot” morale was at its lowest since the Revolution began.

Washington’s army was dwindling; some had deserted, others had died or been captured, and enlistments were about to expire as Washington’s few thousand ragged troops marched wearily on into Pennsylvania.

That’s when a new pamphlet by Paine arrived, the first in a series collectively known as “The American Crisis.” Crucially, Washington distributed copies to his men. The pamphlet’s opening line: These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he

On Independence

In addition to questioning monarchy in general, “Common Sense” introduced ideas of independence from Britain. This was important, since most Americans with revolutionary leanings nevertheless felt apprehensive about actual secession from the

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In 1776, most Americans read “Common Sense,” and if they couldn’t read it, someone else read it to them.

TOP RIGHT

Thomas Paine (1737–1809), English-born revolutionary writer. Hulton Archive/Getty Images BOTTOM RIGHT

The cover of Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense" which sold over one hundred thousand copies in three months and told Americans, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again." MPI/Getty Images

that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

For Washington’s dilapidated band—reportedly on the verge of calling it quits until the general ordered Paine’s essay read aloud—the line immediately became an unofficial motto.

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Paine thundered next, before reminding his embattled listeners why they fought: Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared, that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. Paine then spoke directly of the Continental Army itself, even on the heels of its New York defeat: I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat [through New Jersey] to the Delaware [River], suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without self, covering or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit.

Once again, Paine’s words arrived just when they were needed most.

The date of the “Crisis” reading was Dec. 23, 1776.

The Americans desperately needed a win. Two days later, they got one.

It was Christmas night when Washington led his men daringly across the icy Delaware River to surprise the Hessians stationed nearby. By the numbers, the Battle of Trenton was a minor engagement, but for its meaning to the revolutionaries’ cause, it was momentous.

After the battle, Washington is reported to have remarked, “This is a glorious day for our country.”

It may never have happened absent the might of Paine’s pen.

Dr. Jackson, who teaches Western, Islamic, American, Asian, and world histories at the university level, is also known on YouTube as “The Nomadic Professor.” You can follow his work, including entire online history courses featuring his signature on-location videos filmed the world over, at NomadicProfessor.com

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Founding Father George Clymer

A Founder Twice Over He was one of the few men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and, 11 years later, the Constitution W R I T T E N B Y W. K E S L E R J A C K S O N

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y the time George Clymer was one year old, both his mother and his father were dead. Orphaned, George was placed in the care of his Philadelphia uncle, William Coleman. Coleman was an extraordinary man—a lawyer and merchant of Quaker stock, a friend of Benjamin Franklin (and member of the latter’s Junto), a founder with Franklin of the American Philosophical Society and the University of Pennsylvania, and a leading philanthropist. In his “Autobiography,” Franklin described Coleman as possessed of the “coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals of almost any man I ever met.” And fortunately for young George Clymer, uncle William loved him as a son.

George was educated primarily in the extensive personal library of his new benefactor, where Coleman often found the lad poring over some tome or another; his favorite author was Jonathan Swift.

George thus developed a predilection for learning at a young age, and before long he had adopted “republicanism” as a political philosophy. He thus cherished liberty as defined by Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard who, writing anonymously as “Cato” in the 1720s, characterized it as the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruit of his labour, art, industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any members of it, by taking from any member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.

George’s education continued in his uncle’s counting-house, where he was trained in numbers—and the ins and outs of running a mercantile enterprise.

estate as well. This was a great material blessing, of course, but these were tempestuous times. The French and Indian War had effectively removed the French from North America—but British authorities decided to leave ten thousand troops in North America. To raise revenue in support of these troops, the various Navigation Acts—heretofore somewhat ignored—would finally be enforced, including a new set of regulations: the Sugar Act (1764). Colonists from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania had protested loudly at this, questioning Parliament’s very right to levy such a tax in the first place. Many colonials boycotted British goods.

The real uproar, however, accompanied Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act (1765), which applied an internal tax on the colonies for the first time. In response, the Sons of Liberty rioted in the streets, colonial legislatures passed anti-Stamp Act resolutions, and an inter-colonial Stamp Act Congress issued a joint protest to Parliament and the King. George Clymer, now 26 years old and recently married, was among the protesting colonials. Indeed, among the Philadelphia elite he was one of the most militant advocates of resistance to Britain.

Even though the Stamp Act was eventually repealed, Parliament immediately passed the Declaratory Act, reminding the colonists that Parliament had not given up the principle that it could legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” The subsequent Townshend Acts demonstrated this, and once again the non-importation movement roared to life, crippling British exports.

Clymer himself led boycott efforts in Philadelphia, at the same time authoring political pamphlets and broadsides in support of separation from Britain; this was a very radical view at the time. Despite the barrage of colonial opposition, Townshend stringently enforced the Acts. When the Massachusetts

An Influential Merchant in Tempestuous Times

George inherited some wealth from his grandfather in 1750, then, with the death of William Coleman in 1769, inherited the lion’s share of his uncle’s sizable

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ABOVE

George Clymer.

Hulton Archive/ Getty Images

assembly issued an anti-Townshend circular letter, the governor dissolved the assembly, sparking mob violence, in turn precipitating the arrival of four regiments of British troops to Boston.

It was in this atmosphere that George Clymer inherited his uncle’s significant mercantile business.

He now had much more to lose, even as the military occupation up north produced ever-worsening relations between British authorities and the people of Massachusetts (and, by extension, those of other colonies as well). The killing of a twelve-year-old named Christopher Snider by a customs informer in Boston was the last straw, leading within a couple of weeks to the “Boston Massacre.” Troops were subsequently pulled out of Boston proper.

The Tea Act and Tea Parties

Though things seemed to quiet down after 1770, the Gaspee Affair of 1772—when a British customs schooner was attacked off the coast of Rhode Island—sparked both British and colonial outrage once more. The next year, the Tea Act was passed, favoring the British East India Company at the expense of countless American smugglers.

At 34 years of age, George Clymer took charge of local resistance to the Tea Act. When the Boston rebels established a committee of correspondence with fellow rebels in Philadelphia, they particularly sought out Clymer. Clymer also played a leading role in Philadelphia’s Oct. 16, 1773 “tea meeting,” when, according to an early biographer, citizens of the city were impressed by Clymer’s “reasoning, sincerity, zeal and enthusiastic patriotism.” The gathering produced a series of resolutions, one of which declared that the resolution lately entered into by the East India Company, to send out their tea to America subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America.

The resolutions of the Philadelphia “tea meeting” inspired Bostonians to similar resolves. Indeed, Massachusetts man John Adams would later write that the flame kindled on that day [Oct. 16, 1773] soon extended to Boston and gradually spread throughout the whole continent. It was the first throe of that convulsion which delivered Great Britain of the United States.

That December, just days after Boston’s more famous “Tea Party,” Philadelphia held one of her own, intercepting a British tea ship; Clymer himself convinced the captain to turn around and return to Britain.

George Clymer thus helped set in motion the

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chain of events that would ultimately explode into armed revolution.

Signing the Founding Documents

After the “shot heard round the world” was fired at Lexington (initiating the American Revolutionary War), Clymer answered the call for “Patriot” volunteers, engaging the British in company with other Pennsylvanians in support of George Washington and the Continental Army. He also established a militia and helped fortify Philadelphia. Around the same time, and in a show of support for “the Cause,” he poured much of his gold and silver into the Congress’s paper money, or “continentals,” eventually losing a fortune when the “continentals” were inflated into worthlessness. But when part of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Second Continental Congress rejected the proposed joint Declaration of Independence and abandoned that body, George Clymer was elected to help fill their vacant positions.

This he did—and as such was present to inscribe his signature onto the new confederation’s founding document, along with 55 other men. “For the support of this Declaration,” Clymer and his fellows thereby announced, “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

George Clymer went on to act as a liaison between George Washington and the Continental Congress (a risky business, since it often involved covert travel across enemy territory to the front), served in the Congress for most of the war years, helped formulate Pennsylvania’s constitution, secured an alliance with the Shawnee and the Delaware, and raised vital funds for the Continental Army. After the war, he continued to work as a merchant while serving in the Pennsylvania legislature, then represented that state in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. It was here that the Constitution was written.

Clymer was a signatory.

Thus it was that George Clymer became one of only half a dozen men to have signed both the Declaration of Independence and, eleven years later, the federal Constitution. In his honor, a borough and a township in Pennsylvania and a town in New York are all named after him.

Dr. Jackson, who teaches Western, Islamic, American, Asian, and world histories at the university level, is also known on YouTube as “The Nomadic Professor.”

You can follow his work, including entire online history courses featuring his signature on-location videos filmed the world over, at NomadicProfessor.com

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Arts & Architecture "But how is a taste in the beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation? ... You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts.

But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile them to the rest of the world, and procure them its praise."

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The Capitol’s Statuary Hall A Colorado congressman gives us a tour of the grand chamber where John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln had desks WRIT TE N BY KE N BU CK

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n the quick walk from my office to the House floor to vote, I paused a moment in Statuary Hall, my favorite room in the Capitol building. The room once served as the meeting place for the U.S. House of Representatives, back when there were fewer representatives and each member’s desk could fit in the grand space. An early example of Greek revival architecture, Statuary Hall is encircled by 38 marble columns. Statues of famous Americans span the perimeter.

As a congressman, I enjoy taking guests on tours of the Capitol. On those tours, I spend most of the time in Statuary Hall because the room has so much to offer, from history to constitutional lessons.

On this particular December evening, I approached the room with a different feeling. I stared for a few moments at the statue of Lady Liberty near the ceiling, her hand extended with a scroll. The 13-foot statue is perched directly above where the Speaker’s desk was previously located in the chamber. I often tell tour guests, “This is one of the most important statues we will see on the tour. She’s Liberty, and the scroll in her hand is the Constitution.” Ever since 1817, Lady Liberty has offered this remarkable document to members of the House as an eternal reminder of our responsibility to honor the Constitution in everything we do.

Back in the day, it would’ve been impossible to look at the Speaker’s desk without taking in the full glory of Liberty and remembering the Constitution.

But not anymore. So much has changed since the

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House relocated to the current chamber.

Ever since I was first elected to Congress in 2014, I felt an undeniable connection to this particular statue. The first official event in Washington I attended after the election was a dinner in the Capitol for new members of Congress. One of the historians from the Library of Congress joined the dinner to explain the many features of the Capitol.

Lady Liberty immediately captured my attention.

The librarian gestured at the magnificent statue.

Lady Liberty stood high above us, looking across the room. The American eagle, a symbol of strength, flanks her on one side, wings flung open. On the other, a serpent snakes up a column, its jaws slightly parted, a manifestation of Sophia, the Greek goddess of wisdom. The librarian didn’t need to articulate the meaning of the Constitution in Lady Liberty’s outstretched right hand. The symbolism is unmistakable—wisdom and liberty are intrinsically linked. More specifically, wisdom about our Constitution and the rule of law is the foundation for our liberty.

After drawing everyone’s attention to Lady Liberty, the librarian pointed out plaques embedded in the floor where eight former presidents took a seat before or after serving in Congress. John Quincy Adams sat toward the front of the hall. Adams is the only American president to be elected by the House of Representatives because of a tie vote in the Electoral College. And yes, that vote of the House occurred in what is now Statuary Hall.

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Sculpture of the “Car of History” by Carlo Franzoni, in National Statuary Hall.

Architect of the Capitol

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Adams is also the only person to ever win a seat in Congress after serving as president. In the House, we call that career move a promotion.

I often wonder whether Congress should rename Statuary Hall after John Quincy Adams. So much of his life, and even his death, occurred in this hallowed hall. And he had a tremendous impact on America’s history. The son of our second president, John Adams, he was a thoughtful and committed leader in the fight to end slavery. In 1836, several members of Congress representing southern states passed a “gag rule,” mandating that the House of Representatives automatically table any petition to abolish slavery.

Adams fought against that gag rule for a full eight years before finally helping to repeal it.

When I give tours, guests are always delighted to learn about the special architectural feature in the old House chamber that gave the wily Adams an advantage over his adversaries. The ceiling of the room is designed to resemble ancient Greek meeting places, and its curved shape allows a listener on one side of the room to eavesdrop on a conversation on the opposite side of the room. The architectural feature has such a profound effect that even a whisper can be heard across the room—at the spot where Adams sat. Adams used this feature to his advantage when the pro-slavery Democrats were scheming to silence his abolitionist efforts.

Another famous member of the House had the same passion to abolish slavery. Abraham Lincoln sat at a desk in the back of the chamber from 1847 to 1849 as a congressman from Illinois before he became president. I am often overcome by the thoughts of how past members in this chamber, appropriately called the People’s Chamber, tenaciously fought political battles on some of the weightiest topics our nation has ever considered.

Even with my busy travel schedule between Colorado and Washington, I make time to give tours as often as I can, because the Capitol has a story to tell, and I want to give voice to that story. I always leave feeling inspired by our founders and our history, and ready to go back and fight the political and policy battles of the day. The Capitol building keeps me grounded in the Constitution and helps me remember our foundational principles.

Excerpted from the 2020 book “Capital of Freedom, Restoring American Greatness” by Colorado Rep. Ken Buck.

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National Statuary Hall. Karen Bleier/ AFP via Getty Images

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Poetry, Almanacks, and Spelling Bees How America charted its own literary course when the revolutionary war ended W R I T T E N B Y W. K E S L E R J A C K S O N

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pon seceding from Britain, her thirteen former colonies immediately began to lay the foundations of an independent humanities tradition.

One could argue, of course, that the process of creating a uniquely “American” literature was already well underway long before the Revolution even began—with William Bradford’s “History of Plymouth Plantation,” for example, or the poetry of New Englanders Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, or the religious writings of Cotton Mather, or Roger Williams’s musings on liberty. More recently, one could single out Franklin’s “Autobiography” (and other writings), Tom Paine’s philosophical tracts, or Jefferson’s political ones. The Revolution itself had given birth to distinctly American songs, from “Yankee Doodle” to “The Ballad of Nathan Hale” and “The Battle of the Kegs.”

Now Phillis Wheatley, a 20-year-old WestAfrican-born enslaved person in Boston whose owners, the Wheatleys, had taught her to read and write, published her “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral” while in London with the Wheatley family. The gifted poetess was subsequently emancipated, then returned to Massachusetts to continue to write, though she died young at age 31.

“LO! Freedom comes,” Wheatley wrote, celebrating newly-born America as “Columbia.”

Come you, Phillis, now aspire, And seek the living God, So step by step thou mayst go higher, Till perfect in the word.

Auspicious Heaven shall fill with fav’ring Gales, Where e’er Columbia spreads her swelling Sails: To every Realm shall Peace her Charms display, And Heavenly Freedom spread her golden Ray.

Future Yale president Timothy Dwight produced many popular poems, plus a ten-thousand-line epic poem called “The Conquest of Canaan” in 1785.

And Dwight wasn’t America’s only epic poet; Joel Barlow, a Yale graduate, produced an 8,350-line epic poem called “The Columbiad” (based on a shorter epic poem he’d written and published in 1787, “The Vision of Columbus”), meant to be a national epic. Many people at the time were comparing “The Columbiad” to the “Iliad,” the “Odyssey,” and the “Aeneid.” The ode to Columbus included these lines:

Around the same time, the abundant poetry of Princeton graduate Philip Freneau captivated this first generation of Americans (especially his Revolutionary War odes), while slave Jupiter Hammon had, since at least 1760, been producing and publishing Christian poetry and prose, much of it aimed at his fellow blacks.

Hammon was a great admirer of the much younger Wheatley, to whom he wrote,

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I sing the Mariner who first unfurl’d An eastern banner o’er the western world, And taught mankind where future empires lay In these fair confines of descending day After reading the poem, George Washington described this American bard as “a genius of the first magnitude.”

Meanwhile, American playwright Royall Tyler produced the country’s second native stage play, “The Contrast” (after Thomas Godrey’s “The Prince of Parthia” in 1767).

Farmer’s Almanack

In 1793, bookbinder and schoolmaster Robert Bailey Thomas published “The Farmer’s Almanack,” selling a hundred thousand copies each off-season; new issues are still published annually even today! The Almanack included calendars, astronomical charts, clever advice, funny stories, proverbs, and metaphorical fables, among other items.

Painters like Charles Wilson Peale and John Trumbull added another layer to America’s budding humanities tradition. Many of the Revolution’s leading figures stood for Peale’s portraits, and his self-portrait shows him mysteriously lifting a goldtrimmed red curtain to America’s first natural history museum (which he founded). Trumbull’s paintings include such well-known works as “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill,” “The Declaration of Independence” (certainly that event’s most famous portrayal), “Surrender of Lord Cornwallis,” and the best-known portrait of Alexander Hamilton currently extant.

American Textbooks Replace the British LEFT A self-

portrait by painter Charles Wilson Peale. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts TOP RIGHT

A sketch of Phillis Wheatley in the 1893 book "Women of Distinction" by Lawson A. Scruggs.

Public Domain RIGHT An

engraving from a 1761 almanac depicting farmers in the field in the month of April.

Fotosearch/Getty Images

The cannons of the Revolution had barely ceased firing before the old British texts began to be replaced by American ones in schools and home libraries. Yale graduate (and classmate to Barlow) Noah Webster published a best-selling spelling book in 1783, a grammar in 1784, and a reader in 1785, hoping to aid American schoolchildren in learning American English, as opposed to what he considered the haughtily-aristocratic-sounding British variety. Webster’s “Speller,” far and away the best-selling American book of the late 18th and early 19th century, went through a staggering 385 editions during his lifetime alone, and paved the way for the American spelling bee tradition.

Dubbed the “Schoolmaster of the Republic,” in 1806 Webster published his first dictionary, producing a more complete version in 1825 and publishing it in 1828; together with his spelling-books,

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the “American Dictionary” effectively established American spelling rules—including many that differed somewhat from their British counterparts. The very language of the new America had thus been standardized as independent of the old mother country.

Wrote Phillis Wheatley of America’s emergence, To every Realm her Portals open’d wide, Receives from each the full commercial Tide.

Each Art and Science now with rising Charms Th’ expanding Heart with Emulation warms.

E’en great Britannia sees with dread Surprize, And from the dazzling Splendor turns her Eyes!

Dr. Jackson, who teaches Western, Islamic, American, Asian, and World histories at the university level, is also known on YouTube as “The Nomadic Professor.”

You can follow his work, including entire online history courses featuring his signature on-location videos filmed the world over, at NomadicProfessor.com

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LEFT An aerial

view of the University of Virginia campus.

Robert Llewellyn/ Photodisc/Getty Images RIGHT Andrea

Palladio inspired the ‘Academical Village,’ a Renaissance village in frontier America. Bob Kirchman

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The ‘Academical Village’

f you had traveled with the Marquis de Lafayette to the Piedmont region of Virginia in 1824, you would have been amazed to come upon a beautifully proportioned village being built in the finest tradition of Renaissance planning. Ten pavilions connected by colonnades extending from a great building resembling the Roman Pantheon rose impressively above the rolling fields of Albemarle County. Lafayette had come as the guest of Thomas Jefferson to the University of Virginia’s nascent Academical Village, Jefferson’s last major architectural project. Lafayette and Jefferson dined together with James Madison and almost 400 dignitaries on the top floor of the still-unfinished Rotunda (the recreated Pantheon) and savored the view of the surrounding countryside.

R.D. Ward wrote of the occasion: “The meats were excellent, and each eye around us beamed contentment. It was contentment arising from the performance of the most sacred, the most grateful duty. It was the offering of liberty to him who had gratuitously aided to achieve it. In the language of Mr. Madison, it was ‘Liberty, where virtue was the guest, and gratitude the feast.’”

Exploring Thomas Jefferson's feat of Renaissance planning at the University of Virginia and his model for a new republic WRIT TE N BY B O B KI RCH MAN

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The university that Jefferson so proudly presented to his compatriot in the cause of liberty was a project that the third president had long cherished in his heart. The seeds were first planted when Jefferson himself was a student at the College of William & Mary, located in Williamsburg, the capital of Colonial Virginia. Jefferson began acquiring what would become his extensive collection of books—and the first library of the University of Virginia. He purchased a treatise on classical architecture, in a shop close to the college, and so began his study of the art of building. He would eventually acquire “A Book of Architecture” and “The Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture,” by James Gibbs; “Parallèle de l’architecture antique avec la moderne” (“A parallel of the ancient architecture with the modern”), by Roland Fréart de Chambray and Charles Errard; as well as “The Four Books of Architecture,” by Andrea Palladio.

He was certainly also acquainted with Bernard de

Montfaucon’s “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”), which features a detailed illustration of the Roman Pantheon. These were the guiding texts for America’s most prolific amateur architect as he set to work designing an institution of higher learning.

When young Jefferson attended William & Mary, it was essentially housed in one large building, the Wren Building, which still dominates one end of Duke of Gloucester Street today. Jefferson had proposed an addition to the College of William & Mary in the late 1700s, along with a few proposals for reform of that institution—they weren’t well-received by the administration, leading Jefferson to pursue his vision in Charlottesville, Virginia, as his career drew to a close. The villa designs of Palladio, the great Renaissance architect, had inspired Jefferson’s own home, Monticello, and furthermore, on a plot of land visible from the “Little Mountain,”

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ABOVE The Darden

School of Business at the University of Virginia. QizhangJia/ iStock / Getty Images Plus

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would also inspire a new kind of college campus—a fitting “academical village” for a new republic.

Renaissance architecture had sought to open up the congestion of medieval towns with plazas and squares, and Leonardo da Vinci had even conceptualized a redesign of Milan along those lines in the wake of deadly bubonic plague outbreaks that ravaged the city in 1484 and 1485.

But it was a French hospital that likely gave Jefferson his most powerful inspiration. The Hôtel-Dieu had a unique problem that Jefferson became aware of when he was in Paris. This hospital in the heart of the city had been the center of France’s health care system since the Middle Ages. It was housed in a single building that was overcrowded and conducive to the spread of disease. Louis XVI had been concerned by reports of its mortality rate. In 1787, plans for four separate hospitals that could replace Hôtel-Dieu were drafted by Jean-Baptiste Le Roy with assistance from scientists Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and the Marquis de Condorcet, both of whom were friends of Jefferson. Le Roy’s plans called for a series of pavilions connected by colonnades, with a Palladian site plan for each campus.

Though they were never actually built, these campus designs might have inspired Jefferson to write in support of the hospital model for Virginia’s new university: “An academic village instead of a large and common den of noise, filth, and fetid air. It would afford the quiet retirement so friendly to study and lessen the dangers of fire, infection, and tumult. This village form is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace, and quiet.”

By 1817, Jefferson had laid out his campus in an open “U” similar to Le Roy’s designs, collaborating with Dr. William Thornton and Benjamin Henry Latrobe. The Rotunda would command one end of his lawn, flanked by 10 pavilions connected by two colonnades. The other end would open to the rolling hills of Albemarle County. He said of it: “Now what we wish is that these pavilions they will shew themselves above the dormitories, be models of taste and good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the architectural lectures.” Indeed, each featured a distinctive employment of one of the classical orders in columns and entablature. The lower level of each pavilion would house classrooms, and the upper story would be an apartment for a professor. “Each unit, identified with one of the 10 ‘sciences useful in our time’ was to be inhabited by a professor who

taught that subject.” Students were to be housed in rooms that opened into the colonnade. An outer series of buildings known as the Range provided additional housing and kitchens.

The University of Virginia was still being constructed when Lafayette visited in 1824. Classes began the next year, with five professors (all recruited from Europe) and a few dozen students.

The faculty eventually expanded with the hiring of American teachers. As the student population grew, the need for more space prompted the building of a four-story annex to the Rotunda in 1851. This huge addition created precisely the kind of structure Jefferson had sought to avoid, but he had passed in 1826 and was no longer there to guide improvements. In 1895, the Rotunda Annex burned to the ground. In an attempt to save the original Rotunda, the portico connecting it to the burning annex was dynamited. The fire was still able to leap to the Rotunda and it was gutted. Though students and faculty rushed in to salvage books and artworks, much of Jefferson’s library was lost. Today the Rotunda stands after many restorations, still very much a “temple of knowledge and enlightenment.”

Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Virginia, with his wife Pam. He teaches studio art (with a good deal of art history thrown in) to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop. Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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ABOVE View of the

arcade at Pavilion VII. Bob Kirchman

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The Colonial Revival Home Master woodworker Brent Hull introduces different architectural styles that were popularized throughout American history, explaining their significance and unique design features WRIT TE N BY B R E NT H U LL

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n the early 1920s, two men of great wealth were investing their time and money into large restoration and preservation projects. These two men, H. F. DuPont and John D. Rockefeller Jr., both heirs to great fortunes, felt a nostalgic and patriotic pull to the architecture and ideals of colonial America.

Many things were happening in the 1920s culturally. The United States was fresh out of World War I, a war that established the United States for the first time as a major world power. This newfound status caused Americans to reflect deeper on their history. Also, 1926 was the 150th year anniversary of America’s founding in 1776—a milestone many were eager to celebrate. It was a glorious time.

DuPont, in his fervor, began to collect historic rooms of all ages from across the country. Today, his collection, totaling over 175 rooms, is open to the public via a museum converted from his estate, called Winterthur. These rooms represent a tremendous cross-section of American style and taste from 1640 to 1860, from high-style Philadelphia mansions to simple New Hampshire taverns. They demonstrate a level of craft and skill that are amazing, considering that there were no power tools or Pinterest boards for inspiration at the time.

Meanwhile, Rockefeller poured his focus into rebuilding the early capital of Williamsburg, Virginia. Colonial Williamsburg, as it is known today, is a national treasure. I was there a couple of years ago on a sketching tour and was blown away by the charming and beautiful architecture.

These buildings stand with a wonderful confidence. There’s no attempt to be showy, but rather, with humble elements and simple decoration, these buildings inspire.

It’s been nearly 100 years since DuPont and Rockefeller invested in and were enraptured by the

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Colonial Revival style. The Colonial Revival era spans from 1920 to 1940, an architectural style that takes the best of Georgian and Federal-era homes and blends them into a successful aggregate.

When strolling through the cobblestoned streets of Colonial Williamsburg or the halls of Winterthur, it’s hard not to long again for the wonderful detail and simple beauty of these homes and rooms.

Unfortunately, we can’t seem to build homes with the same level of execution, and our faster and cheaper homes appear disposable and no longer timeless.

I was consulting with a client recently who was building a new home and had hoped to capture the spirit of her 1920s neighborhood. She shared her current plans with me and wondered what was missing. They had attempted to capture the past but had missed. “What is it about these houses?” she asked me. Why are we not able to capture it today in our home? I find this is a common sentiment among homeowners, and yet there is a fix.

When my company builds period houses, we’re focused on authentic details and subtle elements.

Sometimes doing less is more impactful. It requires breaking habits of the last 50 years of building.

In truth, there are dozens of important decisions that need to be made when building a house.

However, these decisions are much easier to make if you have a clear focus of what you’re building. I often ask our clients, is this home from 1760, 1820, or 1850? I’m asking for specific dates because that will help determine the styling, the hardware, the moldings, and a myriad of other details.

A recent home we built was inspired by Drayton Hall, the great Southern home built outside of Charleston, South Carolina in the 1740s. By tethering our client’s house to this historic home, we were able to determine many details such as the brick, the windows, the entryway, and the aesthetic of the home. There was no intention of a direct copy, but rather a desire to capture the spirit of this home and its authentic details.

Attention to historical detail allowed us to enliven the character of the home.

The windows are scaled and sized very carefully.

Windows are the eyes of the home and the most important element to get right. We used graduated fenestration (the arrangement, proportioning, and design of windows and doors in a building) here, meaning the first floor windows are slightly bigger than second-floor windows. This establishes hierarchy and helps proportion the home with a heavier base and a lighter top.

Historically, houses made from brick were solid

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These buildings stand with a wonderful confidence.

PREVIOUS PAGE & ABOVE Houses

built in the Colonial Revival style. Greg Pease/ Stone/Getty Images & Ferrantraite/E+/Getty Images FAR LEFT The

Hampton room, which dates back to 1761, inside the Winterthur museum in Delaware.

Courtesy of the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library LEFT Drayton Hall

near Charleston, South Carolina.

Owaki - Kulla/The Image Bank/Getty Images

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masonry, meaning the exterior walls were made of bricks two to three layers thick. The layers were tied together with bonding bricks, meaning bricks that tied the layers together. The layers were essentially woven together, unlike today, where the brick is a single layer or veneer in front of a wood framing. On our client’s house, we used this historic knowledge and introduced a historical bonding pattern. This means that every 5th course was laid up with header bricks. This breaks up the running bond of the brick face (brick that faces the outside world) by creating a subtle coursing pattern.

We also made sure the windows and doors were capped with a brick arch. A brick arch is a historic structural trick that physically spans an opening.

While today, a steel lintel is used, historically the brick arch kept the brick above from collapsing.

True brick arches are rare today and require a custom order from the brick manufacturer.

Louvers (window shutters with horizontal slats) used to be a working part of home air circulation systems. Closed in the morning to block sun and heat, they would be opened to allow light and air movement. With the arrival of air conditioning in the 1950s, windows gradually become non-operable, and large picture windows were introduced.

Shutters were turned into a decorative feature, and on many homes, they’re screwed or nailed to the wall. Working shutters is a small thing that makes a big difference, because the authentic hardware and shadow lines add depth to the face of the home.

These are just a few of the examples of what makes for charming Colonial Revival homes. Remembering and practicing these historic building elements makes for a more beautiful home. In order to build great Colonial Revival homes today, we must be students of the past. We live in an age where the art of building has been lost. With careful work and attention to details, we can build better again.

Brent Hull is the owner and founder of Hull Works, a workshop dedicated to building period millwork, crafting houses, and restoring historic buildings.

He consults and works all over the country. To continue studying traditional building practices, follow Brent on his Instagram, @hullmillwork_ hullhomes; his YouTube page; or www.BuildShowNetwork.com/go/brenthull

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John Trumbull

Capturing Our Revolutionary Origins WRIT TE N BY K AR A B L AKLE Y

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uly 4, 1776: The Declaration of Independence is signed, and the United States of America emerges as a free and independent country after years of conflict and turmoil. The birth of the American nation also heralded a new chapter in world history. These facts are rooted firmly in American history and inform our culture and very way of life.

John Trumbull (1756-1843), a venerated artist and soldier of the Revolutionary War, depicted pivotal moments from these early chapters of the country’s history, immortalizing our origin story in perpetuity. Four of his larger-than-life paintings hang in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. He also painted George and Martha Washington and created iconic portraits of the Founding Fathers.

Among Trumbull’s military duties was rendering British and American fortifications in Boston, utilizing his artistic skills for strategic gain. Trumbull was appointed one of George Washington’s aidesde-camp (headquarters staff), and he painted the general-turned-president numerous times.

Washington at Verplanck’s Point, a gift from the artist to Martha Washington, depicts a scene from the Revolutionary War, though it was painted years later in 1790. Trumbull painted Washington in a heroic composition, with fastidious detail given to his uniform, rank, and horse. The artist drew on an established Renaissance technique by depicting a military display in the distant background, affirming Washington as the gallant protagonist while capturing important historic detail. This background shows Washington staging his troops in honor of French commander Comte de Rochambeau: the French general who helped Washington win the Battle of Yorktown in 1781—a decisive military victory for the Americans.

The portrait was so popular that the City of New

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York commissioned Trumbull to create a modified version of it for the Governor’s Room of New York City Hall. The New York commission is a largescale composition, and a different episode from the Revolution is seen in the background. This painting depicts New York’s Evacuation Day: In 1783, the British army retreated from Manhattan Island, after years of delay and occupation. Washington, along with Governor George Clinton, followed behind in a triumphant procession.

The series of paintings at the Rotunda similarly embraces themes of British resignation and American victory. Congress commissioned Trumbull to paint scenes of the American Revolution in 1817, perhaps as a renewed celebration of independence following the War of 1812.

President James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” selected the subject matter of the four paintings and determined the size—each is a grandiose oil-on-canvas measuring 12 by 18 feet.

Two paintings present British defeat: Surrender of General Burgoyne and Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. The former depicts an episode from 1777, when Burgoyne and his unit were surrounded

by American soldiers, and he was forced to concede defeat. This marked the end of the Second Battle of Saratoga—a turning point in the war.

General Horatio Gates, a British-born leader of American troops, is the central figure. Notably, Burgoyne himself isn’t central to the composition, although he offers his sword as a sign of deference.

Additionally, the scene is a peaceful one: weapons are concealed or otherwise not in use, and officers vigilantly observe the event. These compositional elements indicate that the Americans have control of the war, but that they’re also tactful and merciful.

The Surrender of Cornwallis is a similarly peaceful scene. This episode—Lieutenant General

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“Washington at Verplanck’s Point” by John Trumbull.

All images are in the public domain

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RIGHT “Declaration

of Independence”

by John Trumbull.

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Cornwallis’s defeat at Yorktown in 1781—marked the end of the last major campaign of the American Revolution. Cornwallis lost his siege of Yorktown, Virginia, ultimately ensuring American independence. A French fleet had obstructed Cornwallis’s escape route at sea, and George Washington seized the opportunity to end the battle once and for all.

Trumbull also paid homage to this event in the portrait of Washington described above, thereby reiterating pivotal moments of the Revolutionary War. Like the depiction of Burgoyne’s surrender, an early version of the American flag flies proudly in the upper-right corner of the composition. It’s most likely a Cowpens flag, a modified version of Betsy Ross’s design. However, the two paintings differ in their representation of British and American

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soldiers. In Burgoyne’s surrender, soldiers are depicted on a shared horizontal plane. Trumbull dramatically alters the composition in Cornwallis: The opposing armies are entirely separated, a visual reminder of the division that years of warfare has caused. Cannon smoke hangs heavy in the air: This victory has been hard-won. Cornwallis himself isn’t present, and his representative, General Charles O’Hara, is painted at the same level as American General Benjamin Lincoln’s horse. Lincoln, meanwhile, is the central figure and he towers above his British counterpart. The two sides are nearly symmetrical with soldiers and horses mirrored, with one notable exception: Washington is astride a brown horse in the central middle-ground, but there is no corresponding British officer. With this subtle ges-

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LEFT “Surrender

of General Burgoyne” by John Trumbull.

BELOW “Surrender

of Lord Cornwallis”

by John Trumbull.

ture, Trumbull visually suggests that Washington is without equal.

Trumbull’s reverence for the general is brought to its grandest fruition in the third Rotunda painting, General George Washington Resigning His Commission. This painting celebrates what is considered one of the most patriotic and influential episodes of the Revolution, and indeed, world history: Washington resigned his position as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in December 1783, thus ensuring that the nascent United States would be a civilian-based republic rather than a military dictatorship. Significantly, while the Declaration of Independence had been signed (July 1776) and the Treaty of Paris had formally ended the Revolution (September 1783), what

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would become the American government was still a nebulous entity. The Constitution, which frames the Office of the Presidency and the now-familiar three branches of government, wasn’t written until 1787, and Washington’s first term as president commenced in 1789. Washington, a beloved war hero, had the opportunity to seize absolute power for himself, but by resigning his post and returning to civilian life, he set the precedent for the democratic process. His resignation also foreshadowed his choice to retire from the presidency after two terms, a tradition that was made official in 1947 with the 22nd Amendment.

The depiction of Washington is based on Trumbull’s earlier portraits, described above, and the artist is consistent in representing the icon in his

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general’s uniform. Befitting the occasion, Washington is the central figure, illuminated from an outside light source. To the viewer’s right of Washington, there is a cloaked and unoccupied chair, larger than the others. The cloak resembles a royal mantle, a garment reserved for kings and emperors. For reference, a similar one is worn by Napoleon in a famous painting of his coronation, completed only a few years before Trumbull’s Rotunda commission. By eschewing this mantle and makeshift throne, Washington rejects authoritarian, imperial leadership. Trumbull also depicts Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison. By including these future presidents, the artist emphasizes Washington’s legacy and the foundations of American democracy: these leaders would be elected, which was a revolutionary concept in the 18th century.

Trumbull captures another truly revolutionary event in the fourth and final Rotunda painting, succinctly titled, Declaration of Independence.

Because of its subject matter and appearance on the reverse of the two-dollar bill, it’s arguably the most famous painting in the series. In this scene, Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, presents his first draft of the document to the Second Continental Congress, led by the well-known signatory, John Hancock.

Jefferson is joined by four other Founders, including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. The event takes place in what is now Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Captured British flags are proudly displayed on the walls as trophies of war.

A total of 47 individuals are depicted in this composition: 42 of the 56 signatories, along with five others. The artist portrayed the men from life or drawings in order to capture their likenesses for posterity: It was important to Trumbull to create a realistic group portrait. Two centuries later, this choice has left a profound impact: We as viewers are reminded that these were real, living patriots forging a new nation and a new way of life.

Trumbull’s canvases aren’t merely historical records, passively channeling information from one generation of Americans to the next. Rather, Trumbull’s masterpieces capture the very essence of our revolutionary origins and reflect our shared values. His artwork is the cultural inheritance of each American, reminding us to cherish our independence every day of the year.

Dr. Kara Blakley is an independent art historian. She received her Ph.D. in Art History and Theory from the University of Melbourne (Australia) and previously studied and taught in China and Germany.

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“General George Washington Resigning His Commission”

by John Trumbull.

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Flickering Flames

The Primordial Power of Movies WRIT TE N BY CARY S O LO M O N & C H U C K KO NZE LMAN

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ight. Somewhere in Northern Europe. (8,000 B.C.) Picture a cave with a fire burning just outside its mouth. Prehistoric men, women, and children are seated on the cave floor, every face alit with awe and wonder, under the spell of a master storyteller.

Before them, an elder, dressed in animal skins and a headdress with antlers stands near the flames, gesturing and talking. He’s retelling the story of a recent hunt. The fact that everyone already knows how it ends doesn’t spoil it; if anything, it enhances it. It’s all there: the suspense of the stalk, the rush and fury of the kill, the sustaining power of life-giving flesh, gained at the cost of animal life, and perhaps the life of one of their own. One of their number, moved by the power of the imagery, illustrates the story on the cave wall, trying to hold onto some of the magic lest it be forgotten.

This scene from a “movie”—one made countless millennia before our current form of movies was invented, and replayed countless millions of times throughout those lost eons, is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that we aren’t even aware of it. Yet many of us moderns have had similar experiences in our youth: sitting cross-legged with siblings or friends around a campfire, parents or counselors telling stories by the magical light, sparks rising to the stars, our imaginations transfixed and painting the pictures of the story on the cave walls of our minds.

Mankind’s need for storytelling is timeless and universal. Stories connect us with myths and legends, tradition and history; they tell us truths about ourselves and where we come from, and give us common ground with our fellow man. By sharing triumph and tragedy, love and hate, fear and courage, sadness and joy, stories show us the meaning of life and our place within it. They show us how we should act and choose and the rewards and pitfalls of those acts and choices. Priests, preachers, politicians, and public speakers throughout the ages have all

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known that nothing drives home the point of their message like a good story. We even do it to ourselves, instinctively assigning the significant events of our personal lives to various “stories,” whether it’s the story of our getting our driver’s license, going off to college, and finding or losing love. Everything fits into some sort of story.

Yet just as universal as our need for storytelling, is our need for those stories to be received in the company of others. Aristotle described the appeal of theater in his “Poetics,” the first serious study and analysis of drama. He contrasted it with the performance of the sacred mysteries, yet ascribed to it a similar conveyance of insight, purification, and spiritual healing through visions, called the “theama.” Thus the location of such a performance was named “theatron.” In other words, Aristotle defined theater as the place where humanity receives the wisdom of stories through visions. And much of the power of drama comes from its communal nature—the fact that we consume it as part of an audience, which attains its own collective consciousness for the duration of the presentation.

For plays, the “truth” of a particular presentation was necessarily limited to one particular time and place. And the quality of the experience varied immensely, based on whether Hamlet was being played by Olivier, or Fred the neighborhood butcher.

But for films, where the same presentation can take place over vast reaches of time and space, and where we can all make a claim to sharing the same experience, we all have a chance to belong to the same tribe. We all get to share the same sense of wonder as we enter the massive gates of Jurassic Park, and see those giant dinosaurs made real—even if we intuitively know they’ll soon be hunting our emotional stand-ins—the cast—so convincingly that we’ll forget about our popcorn until the action lets up for a moment.

The motion picture experience is never funnier,

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Photo by Geber86/ E+/Getty Images

Mankind’s need for storytelling is timeless and universal. Stories connect us with myths and legends, tradition and history.

never more terrifying, and never more satisfying than when we experience it as part of an audience.

But now, as we emerge from this global pandemic, we have to ask ourselves: Are we on the verge of losing the primordial impact of film in theaters? Will our fear of contagion bring about the demise of this extraordinary experience and its potential to inform and inspire mankind? Might the so-called progress of internet-streamed “entertainment” inure us to what we’ve become used to this past year: consuming endless hours of it, sheltered in the safety of our homes?

For our part, we hope not. Because if we decide that we’re no longer willing to venture out to join our

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local tribe in a dark cave and receive the true power of story by the light of a flickering flame, then we will have lost something. It’s been said that sooner or later we become the stories we tell. But maybe it’s even truer that we become the stories we’ve shared.

And no matter how many times we revisit a favorite movie in the comfort of our own home, we’ll always fondly remember the first time we saw it—the when, where, and with whom—in a theater.

Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman have been writers and producers in the entertainment industry for 30 years. They have worked with Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony-Columbia, and 20th Century Fox.

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John Philip Sousa

The Musical Salesman of Americanism W R I T T E N B Y K E N N E T H L a F AV E

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hundred years ago, the name John Philip Sousa on a concert program brought out music-loving crowds from all over the United States and around the world. From the time he founded his own band in 1892 until his death 40 years later, Sousa defined the sound of American concert music.

That sound persists today in the form of the distinctively American march. Take a bright blend of woodwind and brass at 120 beats per minute, topped with melodies that might—and in some

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cases actually do—come from a tuneful operetta, and you have the essential Sousa march.

Sousa marches dominate national holidays. Try thinking of an American celebration such as the upcoming Memorial Day without “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” It’s like imagining Valley Forge without George Washington.

Apprenticeship

John Philip Sousa was born in Washington in 1854

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to a father of Portuguese descent and a Bavarianborn mother. His father, a trombonist in the U.S. Marine Band, secured lessons in voice, violin, and the major wind instruments for his son, who repaid him at age 13 by attempting to run away and join a circus band.

Sousa’s father promptly placed young John as an apprentice to his employer. For eight years, the young Sousa learned to master the instruments of the wind band while absorbing their intense tonal colors. His later skill in exploiting the characteristics of woodwind and brass instruments in combination dates to these formative years.

Completing his apprenticeship at age 20, Sousa took off to make his mark as a young violinist and conductor. A love for operetta found him conducting Gilbert & Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore,” which was new at the time. Among the cast was a young lady whom Sousa would marry, with the couple going on to parent three children.

Melodious Marches

To this period, we can trace Sousa’s penchant for lilting melodies. Sousa marches don’t just march: they sing. That’s key to understanding their popularity.

His time as a conductor of operettas led him to compose his own, and indeed, Sousa scored 15 operettas during his lifetime. Tunes from the most popular of them make up his march of the same name, “El Capitan,” but his other marches are often graced by melodies that could very well be a second-act tenor aria or even a love ballad.

These hummable tunes are usually found in the third and last of three “strains” or sections that make up a typical Sousa march, also called the “trio.” The trio for “King Cotton” is a bouncy whistle with a touch of whimsy. For “Hands Across the Sea” it’s a melancholy-tinged anthem. The most famous of them, “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” is a palpable song of devotion.

The President’s Own

LEFT John Philip

Sousa and his newly formed civilian band in 1893. Public Domain

After five years, Sousa was called back to the U.S. Marine Band, this time to be its director. From 1880 to 1892, he shaped what was an underpaid, underdisciplined group into what came to be called “The President’s Own” military band.

This is the period in which the marches started to flow from his pen—ultimately more than 130, most of the more popular ones dating from between 1886 and 1899. In addition to those already named, those best known today include “Semper Fidelis,” the official march of the Marines; “The Washington Post;” “The Thunderer;” “High School Cadets;” “Liberty

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LEFT Sousa in

1900; photo by Elmer Chickering.

U.S. Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division. Public Domain

Bell;” and “The Gladiator March.” The latter, number 28 chronologically, was the first of his marches to catch with the public.

The March King

In 1892, Sousa retired from his position with the Marines to begin his own commercial band. The Sousa Band would flourish for four decades, its popularity reflected in enormously successful American and international tours, earning its leader the label of “The March King.”

As popular as his marches are today, Sousa’s fame in his time was as much due to his ability to program and conduct a dazzling array of music, from opera excerpts to folk songs to waltzes straight from the pens of European masters. The Sousa band played wind arrangements from Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and even Debussy.

Sousa once noted that the difference between an orchestra playing the music of those composers and a wind band playing them is that the orchestra will educate its audience, while the band will entertain them.

In 1896, Sousa was with his wife on European holiday when he got the news that his business manager had died. Sailing back to the United States, he began to hear a march in his head. Sousa knew it had something to do with going home, with the United States, and with what it meant to him as a first-generation American. He would call it “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” a title aptly given by a man who once described his job as “Salesman of Americanism.”

Former music critic for the Arizona Republic and The Kansas City Star, Kenneth LaFave recently earned a doctorate in philosophy, art, and critical thought from the European Graduate School. He is the author of three books, including “Experiencing Film Music” (2017, Rowman & Littlefield).

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A Love of Learning A Great Shift in Education By 2020, problems plaguing the public school system had been piling up for decades, although budding solutions like charter, hybrid, and micro schools had slowly come into focus in the preceding years. When the pandemic hit, the cracks lining the public school system fractured, and a spotlight was shone on homeschooling—but not the homeschooling of yesteryear. As students across the country were learning from home, parents and policy experts alike dug into the methodology, only to discover what the homeschooling community has long been aware of: education comes in infinite forms.

Homeschooling has diversified, creating opportunities for families to reconsider their priorities, free themselves from planning their lives around school calendars, and even set out on the open road. Parents who were told that their children were a grade, or more behind have found it perfectly possible to help their children catch up, in a fraction of the prescribed time. People have embraced this newfound flexibility, and they don’t want to go back to the way things were or settle for less.

“The big thing is it’s making it normal for people to pursue alternative forms of education,” said Jeremy Newman, Director of Public Policy for Texas Home School Coalition.

“I think we’re going to find a bunch of policymakers who are looking at this start thinking, ‘how can we diversify options that families have available?’”—Texans are already seeing this.

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Homeschooling, a Generation Later Maria teaching the Von Trapp children to sing in “The Sound of Music” epitomized my vision of what homeschooling should be. Reality was not so idyllic, but a generation later, things have come a long way W R I T T E N B Y E V E LY N G L O V E R

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pon writing this, I’m watching my 6-year-old granddaughter tranquilly learn to needlepoint a bookmark. It’s her Mumsee and Pops’s day of play and learning. She’s backlit by the sun, wearing lavender overalls with her long wavy gold hair in a ponytail. This lovely picture brings me back to one of my favorite memories: watching my own homeschooled kindergartener daughter, dressed in overalls and wavy brunette ponytail, encased in a soft sunbeam while she peacefully played with blocks on the playroom floor. That simple scene had taken my breath away; I knew I’d remember it forever. I didn’t know that I’d one day get to relive the delight of that moment with her daughter, my home-educated granddaughter. Out of necessity, I homeschooled my two children before anyone— including me—knew much about homeschooling, aside from seeing it as a distant, strange concept.

We moved often, and I decided I wouldn’t subject my children to a constant change of schools.

I remember trying to explain our education plan to my mother. I expected her to disapprove. After all, she had raised me on the mantra “Education.

Education. Education.” She herself was a pulmonologist and had proudly graduated first in her medical school class. School was such a big deal in my family that I was nervous to tell her. But I had underestimated her. When she saw our situation for what it was, she said something I didn’t expect.

She said, “Well, that’s how royalty is raised.” Her supportive approval bolstered me in my resolve.

In the spirit of doing unto others, I purposed to be supportive of my daughter and her husband’s choices one day. After all, educating a child isn’t an easy thing. The biggest problem was my having no idea how to approach homeschooling.

Teaching children is truly an art, as displayed by Maria teaching the Von Trapp children to sing in “The Sound of Music.” That scene epitomized my vision of what homeschooling should be. I saw myself as a kind of singing, teaching Maria Von Trapp and my children as play-clothes clad, eager pupils frolicking the countryside with me.

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That illusion lasted exactly one day before it burst, thanks to a reality check.

I wasn’t as patient, kind, melodious, and natural as Julie Andrews was, and my children weren’t at all hanging on my every word. It was that day that I got a sobering look at my mission. Besides not knowing exactly where to start, nor the scope or sequence of homeschooling, I realized I had everything to learn if I was going to teach my children everything. Everything.

Cumbersome, expensive curriculum manuals resembled thick phone books and didn’t necessarily guide untrained home teachers on the path of imparting knowledge. I often felt lost. Eventually, understanding that it was a matter of survival, I pitched the expensive books I had ordered into the trash and created a plan much more suited to our time and abilities.

My daughter is now homeschooling her own daughters in what is, thankfully, a vastly improved landscape. Resources abound, as do colleagues.

Mentors and lessons can be found on the internet.

Mom groups are available with scheduled playdates. And curriculum? Curriculum is ever so much more user-friendly.

Homeschool friends are now easier to find in churches, social media groups, and tutorial schools.

Thanks to the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, tutors and teachers are advertising online and in-person lessons. Even the school districts have conceded that homeschooling can be the right choice, depending on a family’s needs. Curriculum writers have learned to pare down and condense instructions and rewrite lessons to launch a parent right into teaching. The curriculum is so much more appealing to students as well.

Back in the pre-internet day, I was fairly desperate for mentoring and support. I often upbraided myself for not being more resourceful. It was hard to find clubs, doings, activities, or anything for homeschool communities. Fortunately for me back then, a very gifted angel of mercy—a very talented homeschool mom—organized a cooperative tutorial school the

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ABOVE "Music

Lesson" by Lord Frederick Leighton.

Public Domain

year before we moved out of state. Another mom established a roller skating day.

Recently, I asked my daughter what grandparents could do to be more supportive of homeschooling. She said without hesitation that helping pay for lessons ranks high. It’s very appreciated.

One model for this kind of help is providing a onetime contribution into a bank account for parents, which they can use to budget throughout the year to subsidize expenses: curriculum, lessons, rentals, and field trips. With some of the financial burden off of their shoulders, the parents are freed to focus on lessons of all sorts.

One arrangement that I would have loved as an early homeschooler is what we have with our daughter now. One day each week—Terrific Tuesdays—the girls spend the day at their paternal grandmother’s house playing, gardening, cooking, and exploring.

Sometimes they have slumber parties. Mumsee and Pops’s day is on Thursdays. I teach what my granddaughter named “art craft.” It’s a good name, because she’s being introduced to the fine arts while still doing crafty things like Mod-podging a balloon to make a paper ball. We’ve acted out books, sat at the piano, read aloud, talked, and are currently learning to needlepoint. We’ve baked bread, colored, and painted rocks.

These grandparent days afford my daughter time

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for rest and planning. She has used them professionally to illustrate two books. What a wonderful thing for her to have time for her own pursuits. On those days, she does a few lessons in the morning, but then has time to use as she needs. Alleviating time stress helps home-educating families function more smoothly.

There was a study that found that grandparents that spend regular time with their grandchildren remained more mentally flexible and generally experienced better health and well-being.

Nobody can accurately describe the blessing of grandchildren. When I first experienced being a grandparent, I knew it was a joy one had to experience to understand. The Bible says that grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and that a good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.

What a joy and a privilege to get to participate in my grandchildren’s development, all while imparting an inheritance. It tires a grandparent out in one way, but serves as a fountain of youth in another.

Evelyn Glover, a Chicago-born, Boston Universityeducated, first-generation American and freelance writer, has traveled the world with her collegesweetheart husband of 34 years. They live near their grandchildren in Franklin, Tennessee, where they pursue and teach many varied arts: writing, cooking, painting, needlework, piano, and cello.

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No Crying in Debate A first debate is always a struggle, and the second one makes use of all the previous mistakes. Studying and engaging in debate paves a path to freedom WRIT TE N BY SAM S O R B O

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he young men and women arrived for their debate dressed in jackets, slacks, and skirts.

They wanted to look the part, as a strategy for winning. This was to be their very first debate in their weekly homeschool co-op class day. The subject was a sobering one: The federal government should discontinue capital punishment.

Jane, a shy, 15-year-old student who eschewed attention of any kind, nervously organized her papers at her assigned table next to her partner Mary, who barely concealed her own apprehensions. Jane was particularly anxious about the portion of the debate known as “cross,” where her opponent could question her openly about any of her research or her position on the topic. The coin toss earlier had resulted in Jane and Mary arguing for the affirmative and against the death sentence punishment.

Teaching debate is a lost art. Today, students typically learn simply to memorize information the teacher provides and then regurgitate it on the exam. But argument is our bulwark against violence. We should be instructing children in the art of persuasion and debate as a means of discovering truth and reaching understanding.

While most public schooling cements rigidity of the mind, purposely instructing young people in forensics affords them flexibility of thought such that one day they might win in the marketplace of ideas. Debate is the very means by which this country discovered itself and offered freedom and its accompanying explosion of prosperity the world had never before seen.

The cramped office in the church where they all met hosted both debate tables, the speaker’s podium, and several chairs for visiting parents and other students. It would have been standing room only if there had been any room left to stand in.

Suddenly, Jane looked sternly at her mother, rose from her table, and walked briskly outside the constricted space. The hallway was vacant, and

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Jane’s mother came up behind her. “What’s going on, Jane?”

Jane turned to face her mother, her face streaked with tears, her lips trembling. “I... can’t... do... this.”

“Yes, you can,” her mom told her sternly. Her own mind was reeling. There’s no crying in debate! If she gave in to Jane’s panic, then the loss might be permanent. No, she thought to herself. She has to get through this somehow. But how? Jane was melting down before her eyes. “Mom, look at me. I can’t stop crying. I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m doing... what to say!”

“Jane, we’ve gone through this. You have your papers. You’ve prepared for this. Everything is written down.” “Not for cross!” Jane hissed vehemently.

“I have no idea what he’ll ask me!” “You will simply answer to the best of your ability, Jane. You can do this. You march in there, and go through with it.

They’re counting on you. We all are. And you’ve done the work.” Jane’s mother sounded more convicted than she felt, but fundamentally she understood that giving in was worse than standing firm.

Through alternate hounding and cajoling, Mom managed to get the young woman to walk back into the room. She was to begin the debate, presenting the affirmative’s side. She turned twice more from the podium to attempt to gather her composure before beginning. Then, tears continually flowing down her cheeks, Jane sobbed through reading her well-prepared pages. She even withstood cross-examination, and by the end of the debate, she had proven to herself that she was stronger than she had previously believed.

A first debate is always a struggle. We’re naturally intimidated by new experiences, especially growing ones. Debate stretches the debater if they want to win. We need to teach our children how to win in the realm of thought.

Which brings us to the second debate, where the debaters discover opportunities to correct previous mistakes and test further strategies. This time

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Argument is our bulwark against violence.

We should be instructing children in the art of persuasion and debate as a means of discovering truth and reaching understanding.

TOP “The Debate

of Socrates and Aspasia” by Nicolas-André Monsiau. Public Domain

Jane knew she would be on the negative side, and she organized her approach based on her initial experience.

The day arrived, and Jane felt less than half as nervous as the previous week. She had battled many demons that day and conquered the bigger ones.

“Is killing wrong?” Jane asked the tall, dark-haired young man she was crossing. “Yes,” he answered quickly and decisively. “All the time?” “Well, yes, of course!” As a Christian homeschooler, the young man knew the commandment not to kill.

“What about in war?” Jane asked, nervous, but committed to her strategy and convinced of its efficacy. “Well,” the young man looked up off to the left, considering. He obviously understood there was a trap, but he couldn’t see avoiding it. He believed that some killing was righteous, especially in wartime, and so, he answered honestly. “In war, the killing is justified.”

“Thank you. No further questions.” Jane smiled

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to herself. Another demon defeated. When Jane took the podium to argue her rebuttal, she offered that the state views serial killers as warring against the public. Her specific case was a particularly heinous tale of a murderer who had been freed, who then committed eight more monstrous murders before being put to death.

Jane won her case. But more than that, she won her battle with fear. Studying and engaging in debate paves a path to freedom. Failing or avoiding teaching young people this skill shackles them.

Unfortunately, most public schools these days don’t tolerate argument or encourage independent thought, seeking uniformity and coerced agreement, instead. Kids in public schools should be crying over their inability to debate.

Sam Sorbo is an actress, talk radio hostess, and author of “They’re Your Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate.”

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Never Give Up

Tears and Triumph Over Long Division W R I T T E N BY C H A R L E S M I C K L E S / I L LU S T R AT E D BY K AT H Y S O W

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hird grade–we all remember it–some memories are good, others, not so much, but one thing that many of us remember is math. Already a huge transitional grade, it’s also a school year in which many new concepts are introduced, and no subject introduces more new concepts than math.

As a third-grade teacher for 10 years, I saw students respond in many unique and interesting ways to this subject and its concepts. Yet no concept evoked more self-doubt, fear, and angst in students, and sometimes parents, than division. In a year already filled with many new experiences, this concept, with its many steps and many opportunities for mistakes, often made students want to give up before they even started.

One year there was a young lady in my class who was very bright but often doubted herself. On the day I first introduced division to the class, you could see the anxiety on the students’ faces, but for one little girl, tears began to flow. She looked at me brokenhearted and simply said, “I can’t do it.” So after I got the class started, I called her to my desk, and we walked through the problems step-by-step. At the end of each problem, she would give me the same answer, “I just don’t understand. I don’t think I can do this.”

As the days turned into weeks and weeks turn into months, I wondered when she would believe in herself enough to do it. Every day we would get out our math books, and as soon as she saw division on the page, tears began to flow. I would call her to my desk and calmly walk her through the problem, helping her see that she could do it. Most days, my help involved nothing more than simply saying, “What do we do next? What do we do next?” Every time, she was able to answer my question and do the problem.

Finally, one day, I looked at her after we had done three problems, and I said, “Tell me what I said as I helped you?” She thought back over our interaction, all of a sudden, the lightbulb came on above her

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head. She looked at me and said, “All you said was ‘What do you do next?’” I said, “Exactly. You did all the work. You know how to do this, but you’re just not sure of yourself. So here’s what I want you to do.

First, look at this problem. I want you to go back to your seat, and every time you get nervous, hear my voice saying, ‘What do you do next?’”

With still a little hesitation, she looked at me, and I smiled and said, “I know you can do it.” She went back to her seat and carefully did the problem. As soon as she was done, she jumped out of her seat screaming, “I did it. I did it.” When she brought her paper to me, she certainly had. From that day forward, there were no more tears.

Honestly, parents, sometimes we are in the same place ourselves. There have been times when my daughter brought me math homework to get my help, and I didn’t even know where to begin (and I have a master’s degree). It’s not easy as a parent to sometimes admit that you’re not sure what to do, but there are days when I’ve had to.

Over the years, there were many stories like this.

Early on in my teaching career, I would get frustrated, until I started to ask myself, “Why is the student reacting this way?” I realized that sometimes it was just overwhelming for them, they didn’t trust themselves, and didn’t realize that all along, they could do it. We, as a parent, can forget how daunting the learning experience can feel for our children.

Think of how you have felt at a new job. Were there days that just seemed like too much? Days where you felt like all you did was make mistakes?

Imagine every day going to work and having your report corrected and being shown the mistakes you made and then having to come back and do it again and again.

Don’t get me wrong, this is necessary, and I’m not saying that students’ errors or ours shouldn’t be corrected. But any time you’re learning new information, there are going to be many mistakes,

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Every day we would get out our math books, and as soon as she saw division on the page, tears began to flow.

there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty, and it will be overwhelming. As adults, we just find better ways to hide it.

How our children feel about success, failure, and learning depends greatly on us as parents and teachers. We must never forget that what we do and how we react will set the tone. When working with children, keep these in mind: 1.

Be patient and try to remember what it was like when you struggled in new situations.

2. Talk to them about your own challenges and fears.

3. Hold their hand and steady them until they feel like they can do it on their own.

4. Let them know that mistakes are OK, and sometimes are necessary to the process.

5. No matter how long it takes, never let them quit, and never give up on them.

6. Finally, don’t be afraid to tell them you don’t know how to do something. When I did, I was surprised how much it helped them as they learned.

We set the tone. Our attitude and reactions to our children and students often tell them what’s most important to us. When we give them the space to mess up, we show them that it’s OK and that we are there to help them take the next step in learning.

This freedom is the greatest gift we can give to help them overcome their fear and uncertainty. This will enable them to believe in themselves, find success as they keep trying, and never give up.

Charles Mickles is an educational consultant with over 25 years in education. As a speaker and author, he has published three books and written numerous articles featured on The Mighty, Yahoo Lifestyles, and MSN. You can follow his story and read more at www.MinesParkinsons.com

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A Rise in Roadschooling W R I T T E N BY J U LI E T T E FA I R LE Y

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hen Margie Hamel Lundy and her husband, Allen Lundy, decided to road school their three children in 2010, they didn’t ask school authorities in Ohio for permission. “We didn’t offer up that information either when we left,” Mrs. Lundy said in an interview. “We were already working from home and were homeschooling our kids.”

So, they packed up their fifth wheel travel trailer, which they had hooked to their truck for weekend camping trips, and started driving.

“The biggest obstacle for me was my mindset and learning how to do things in a different way, because growing up traditionally and going to public school

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is what we knew,” Mr. Lundy said. “Road schooling was scary. It required a big change of mindset. Once we got that, there was so much freedom in it.” For Mr. Lundy, it was the thinking that a child has to sit down at a desk to learn from a specially trained adult that needed to change in order to get behind the idea. “We didn’t realize, until we watched it happen, that kids can learn from anyone and everything all the time,” he said.

Today, their children Lizzy, 21; Josh, 21; and Matt, 18 are all grown up and living on their own.

The Lundys, however, continue to travel the country. “We’re having a good time,” Mrs. Lundy said.

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“We visit the kids, too. We saw our daughter in Nevada and now we’re seeing our son. It’s fun to travel and see them and then travel again.”

Road schooling—also known as RV homeschooling—is the practice of homeschooling children while driving on the road from city to city or state to state without attending a brick and mortar school building. “Just because it’s called homeschooling doesn’t mean that the schooling has to always take place in your home,” said Thomas J. Schmidt, a staff attorney with the non-profit Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

Regarding how they homeschooled their kids for 11 years while driving, Mrs. Lundy said the state of Ohio required teacher overviews and some reporting to the county. “It wasn’t hard but we did have to figure it out and talk to some people who were more familiar with Ohio’s homeschool laws,” she said.

Eventually, the Lundys relocated to Florida, where homeschool accountability is easier. “We joined an umbrella group through Florida Unschoolers and then all you have to do with the umbrella school is report attendance,” she said. “We didn’t have to do a dossier check through an accredited teacher like we did in Ohio. Florida requires private umbrella schools to verify our kids have at least 180 days of attendance each school year, so 45 days each quarter.”

The Lundys are among the 6,000 parents who have participated in the tuition-free Florida Unschoolers, which is a legal path for parents to comply with the state’s attendance law. Others work with the HSLDA. “Children arrive in kindergarten with a strong desire to learn, and they receive great joy from learning,” said Lee Jenkins, author of the book “How to Create a Perfect School.” “If parents who are RVing and homeschooling can keep this desire to learn alive, and if the children receive joy from the learning, the plan is a good one.”

In May, the RV Family Virtual Summit, co-organized by Bryanna Royal, taught parents how to hit the road with their school children in tow.

There were multiple Zoom instructional webinars, including: how to transition to road life, how people of color are received on the road, what is the cost of RV living, telling your family you are hitting the road, and how to avoid educational roadschooling potholes and school tickets.

“School doesn’t have to look so traditional,” said LaNissir James, a high school educational consultant with the HSLDA. “It can be very eclectic if you choose.” LaNissir and her husband Lorenzo are homeschooling their seven children on the road in their RV. “I love to use travel guides,” LaNissir said in an interview. “Another favorite is state parks because

School doesn't have to look so traditional. It can be very eclectic if you choose.

L A N I S S I R J A M E S , H S L D A H I G H S C H O O L C O N S U LT A N T

you can learn a lot of history from the state park. You may have a guide to your state park and then you can talk about the history of the state park.”

Staying overnight and waking up at a camp site is also a great educational opportunity, according to James. “All the campsites have so many fun things and games like chess,” she said. “They have lots of logic games and other things that you can do.”

A downside to the family’s roadschooling, however, is only having one toilet in their RV. “There are times we all are lined up and have to use the bathroom at the same time,” LaNissir said. “There’s a conflict there. They don’t make RVs with three bathrooms yet.”

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the AustinAmerican Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

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LEFT & ABOVE

Studying on the go became a way of life for the Lundy children. All photos courtesy of the Lundys

A LOV E O F L E A R N I N G

Reading

The Gateway to Empathy None of us has the time to meet all the people, live through all the situations, visit all the places, and make all the mistakes.

Reading is our next best option WRIT TE N BY G I NA PRO S CH

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t’s all so sad,” said Emma, reflecting on the death of Hector as seen through the eyes of his grieving parents. “Especially because last week during class, I was happy about Achilles getting his revenge. We were excited as he put his armor on and went out to fight with Hector. We’ve been waiting for this moment ever since Hector killed Patroclus. But now, I hate it.”

Welcome to my homeschool literature class where we’re diving deep into the “Iliad.”

The narrative’s changing point of view has Emma and her classmates on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Where once they cheered Achilles on as he prepared for battle, now the kids are face-to-face with the high price of war. They’ve seen the grief of Hector’s parents, who watched as their son was cut down on the battlefield in front of them.

Another scene shift and now they see Hector’s wife, Andromache, weaving at her loom, getting a hot bath ready for Hector, oblivious to the fact her husband has just been killed. “I think Homer’s a stinker,” said Lauren. “He makes us want Achilles to succeed with his revenge, but as soon as it happens, I’m sad for Hector’s wife and family. Especially since the whole time he’s describing Andromache, we know what’s happened, so we’re here waiting for the other shoe to drop for her. Reading that was awful.”

“I wish life could be more fair,” said Emma.

More than watching movies or television shows, more than listening to audiobooks or playing games, reading serves as a magic doorway to empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of other people. Unfortunately in today’s world, feeling empathy for others is quickly becoming something of a lost art. But it doesn’t have to be.

Particularly when you start early. Award-winning children’s book creator Julia Cook, author of nearly 100 books for children, including “The Judgmental Flower” and the forthcoming “Will You Be the I in KIND?,” says, “You cannot teach empathy to chil-

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dren, you can only offer them experiences that allow them to develop it from within. Reading is a great way to do that!”

As a longtime classroom teacher, I agree. I regularly remind my students that none of us has the time to meet all the people, live through all the situations, visit all the places, and make all the mistakes, so reading is our next best option. Be they fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose or plays; books and the characters who live in their pages help readers view the world firsthand from someone else’s perspective.

A character’s point of view becomes the lens through which readers see the action and interactions of the story. Readers sneak inside someone else’s head and share that person’s emotions. As readers, we have the opportunity to experience more of the world than we ever could on our own.

As a former school counselor, Cook quickly realized that in order to help children, she needed to enter their view of the world, to empathize with them as they tried to figure out how the world worked. Reading books makes it easier for children to understand emotions and people’s reactions to extreme situations when they aren’t immediately involved in those situations. Plus, reading (or being read to) gives kids the opportunity to see the world from a point of view other than their own.

Maybe that new perspective comes from Hank the Cowdog’s point of view, maybe it comes from Big Dog and Little Dog, maybe from a classic such as Lassie or Old Yeller. The important thing is for children to learn that the world doesn’t look the same to everyone.

Different people experience things in different ways.

Little Dog’s encounter with a too-long bed is different than Big Dog’s encounter with a too-short bed.

As an only child, I never longed for siblings of my own, but I was curious about how having a brother or sister worked. That curiosity was satisfied by Charlie and Sally Brown and Lucy and Linus Van Pelt as I read about their sibling antics in the

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Where once they cheered Achilles on as he prepared for battle, now the kids are face-to-face with the high price of war.

Peanuts comic strips. As I grew older, I joined the Ingalls family in the Little House books and later, the Bennet family of “Pride and Prejudice.” I gained an understanding of how tumultuous and intense the relationship between siblings can be.

Before I experienced the death of a loved one in real life, I was as powerless as Meg, Jo, and Amy to save dear, sweet Beth March in Little Women.

While the March family grieved their loss, I sobbed along in my bedroom, because as a reader, I had lost someone important to me too.

I began to understand what grief felt like. I also learned how much it could hurt to be told “Ah, what’s the big deal, it’s only a book; it’s not like anybody actually died.” And by extension, I realized I didn’t want to be the one to say, “Ah, what’s the big deal, it’s ‘just’ a —-“ to someone else who experienced a loss. That’s empathy.

That’s what Atticus Finch is talking about when he tells Scout (and everyone who reads “To Kill a Mockingbird”) “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus doesn’t add a caveat of “but only walk around in the skin of people you like or people who are like you.” It’s important to extend empathy to everyone. Later in the novel, Atticus once again reminds Scout, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

What if that became a summertime goal? It’s as easy as searching out a book that sounds interesting. Then just turn the page, slip into someone else’s shoes, and open the gateway to empathy.

Gina Prosch is a writer, home educator, life coach, and parent located in mid-Missouri. She is the author of “This Day’s Joy” and “Finding This Day’s Joy,” both of which are available at Amazon. Find her online at GinaProsch.com or TheHomeschoolWay.com. She also co-hosts The OnlySchoolers Podcast (OnlySchoolers.com).

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LEFT Vintage

engraving of “The Virgin Mother”

by William Dyce.

Duncan1890/ DigitalVision Vectors/ Getty Images

A LOV E O F L E A R N I N G

A Long Look Back My journey in homeschooling, cultivating patience, and becoming a teacher of teachers WRIT TE N BY J E FF M I N I CK

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t was September 1987, and my daughter, my wife, and I opened up a box of kindergarten materials from the Calvert School, and so began our homeschooling adventure.

For the next 26 years, we were a homeschooling family. After the first couple of years, we abandoned a full-curriculum approach and selected our own materials for math, language arts, history, science, and foreign language. We operated a bed and breakfast, where we also lived, and turned one of the second-floor rooms at the back of the house into our classroom, complete with tables and desks for each child.

Because Kris taught clinical nursing part-time in nearby Asheville, N.C., to supplement our income, I did most of the teaching. Though our early days of home education were pre-internet, we managed to come up with various excellent resources, in part because we also owned a bookstore on Waynesville’s Main Street and had access to various publishers.

Soon we founded a mail-order homeschool company called Saints and Scholars, and traveled during the summers to book fairs, where we sold our wares but also had the opportunity to look over books and programs carried by other vendors and publishers.

As each of our four children grew older, they became involved in community activities such as sports, Scouts, and 4-H. We also helped establish a homeschool co-op, and later, after my wife’s death, my youngest son and I moved to Asheville, where there was a thriving homeschool community offering basketball and soccer teams, a chorale, a debating club, an actors’ guild, and much more. As our children reached the appropriate age, all of them entered the dual-enrollment programs at local community colleges, allowing them to head off to college with some credits under their belt.

demands on my time and energy. Like so many young people I know today, my wife and I worked hard, struggled with finances, and fell exhausted into bed at night.

Our two older children had a rougher time than their younger siblings. Most of their friends attended public schools, and Waynesville then lacked the homeschooling community that existed in Asheville. Though Kaylie and Jake pleaded to attend the local high school, Kris and I convinced them to continue their education at home. It was a tough sell, but today, all my kids would tell you how grateful they are for that education.

A New Occupation

When Kris died in 2004, Kaylie and Jake were enrolled at Christendom College, a small school in Front Royal, Virginia. With the two younger boys still at home, our experiment in schooling might have ended except for the new career I had already started.

In the late 1990s, I began teaching homeschool seminars in Asheville. Eventually, this enterprise grew into Asheville Latin, and after selling our Waynesville businesses and moving to Ashville, for the next 10 years I taught history, literature, writing, and Latin to more than 100 students each year.

They would come to one or more of these seminars once a week for two hours, and return home with another four to eight hours of work, depending on the class they were enrolled in.

These seminars brought much good both to my students and to me. They deepened the sense of community among homeschoolers, and the students often excelled and went off to universities such as Carolina, Vanderbilt, Brown, and the U.S. Naval Academy. Others entered military service or the workforce, and in some cases, started their own businesses.

As for me, I called these classes “teacher heaven.” I had taught for two years part-time in a public school in Waynesville and in a local prison, and instructing the homeschoolers brought none of the stress of

Obstacles

This journey wasn’t without its pitfalls. In addition to teaching my children, I operated the bed-andbreakfast and bookstore, both of which placed many

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either of those places. I can count on one hand the number of disciplinary problems I encountered in my Asheville Latin classes.

The 2nd Generation

Today my children are grown, married, and with children of their own. Though some of my grandkids participate in groups such as Montessori Schools and co-ops, all but one of them in one way or another are homeschooling.

Every homeschooling family faces different challenges, and my own children are no exception.

Balancing the demands of work with the demands of school, dealing with the learning styles, talents, and needs of each student, and finding what methods and materials work best in their domestic classrooms often requires making tough decisions.

But my children’s families also have advantages our own school lacked. For one, more parents nowadays are teaching their children at home, which means greater companionship for the students and a pooling of resources for the parents. For another, today’s homeschooling families have available to them a richer trove of resources than we did, particularly via the internet. One of my grandsons, for example, has learned to read at age 4 by using an online program, Reading Eggs, while my twin granddaughters, age 12, are benefiting from the online Institute for Excellence in Writing.

3 Practical Tips

TOP RIGHT

From the Danish Punch magazine, April 18, 1889.

Public Domain

When we attended book fairs, parents new to homeschooling often approached our table and asked me for advice on homeschooling. The first thing I told them was: “Start every school day at the same time. Kids love routine. The day may fall apart for any number of reasons—accidents or sickness that require a trip to the doctor or some other family emergency—but try to start at the same time.”

Organization, I went on to say, was also a key to success. I’d describe our first few years of schooling, when we often spent precious minutes every morning tracking down a reader or looking for a math notebook. Finally I bought large plastic bins at Walmart, assigned one to each child, and required them to put all of their workbooks and texts into the bin at the end of the day. Problem solved.

“Practice patience” was my third piece of advice.

An example: Jake had difficulty learning to read. I vividly remember sitting beside him on a sofa one morning and becoming angry with this 6-year-old

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when he couldn’t make out the words we’d studied all week from Sam Blumenfeld’s “Alpha-Phonics.”

Jake broke down in tears, and I mentally rebuked myself: “Cool your jets, buddy. You’ve got all the time in the world to teach this boy reading.” He learned to read. I learned to be patient.

Benefits

All parents are home educators. Johnny and Sally may head off to school each morning, but they’ll learn most major life lessons in the home. But when we teach academics in that home as well, one great boon of that endeavor is the extra time we get to spend with our children. We experience the pleasure of personally helping them develop as learners, but even better, we spend many extra hours with them every day of their young lives.

The past year’s pandemic had the unforeseen consequence of more than doubling the number of families across the nation registered as homeschoolers. If you have the time, the opportunity, and the inclination, consider joining them. And to those who are already a part of this growing army of home educators, take heart and keep up the good work.

Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of non-fiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va. See JeffMinick.com to follow his blog.

A LOV E O F L E A R N I N G

Still Small Voices The South Bay Children’s Choir recovers a lost tradition W R I T T E N B Y R AY M O N D B E E G L E

Goethe believed that singing was the first stage of education: “The simplest pleasure, as well as the simplest teaching is made alive and imprinted on us through song; even what we communicate about faith and moral belief is expressed through song,” as stated in Thomas Mann’s essay “Tolstoy and Goethe.”

Today our young sing very little. They tap a screen and have others sing to them. They are passive and solitary. Our present society, with its so-called communication technology, is in fact a society blighted by the technology of isolation.

Children live in an artificial screen world. They talk to people in a different location on “FaceTime,” or watch something on a video screen, oblivious to the moon that might be rising over the trees above them, or the people they pass on the street. They listen to recorded music and don’t know how to make music themselves. They have at their fingertips the arrogant commercial music of ugliness, violence, and sexual indulgence.

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nthropologists and linguists argue about whether people sang before they spoke, or spoke before they sang. We will probably never know, nor do we need to. We are certain, however, that the alliance between words and music, and its profound effect on the human heart, is proven every day in countless homes, schools, churches, and concert halls.

Singing isn’t just an ornament of a refined civilization. It isn’t tinsel on the Christmas tree, but an element of the tree itself. Martin Luther said that he wouldn’t hire a schoolmaster who couldn’t sing. Classes in his school began with a song, not to entertain the children, but to unify them in communal celebration of humankind’s highest ideals.

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‘A Good and Kind Feeling’

What a wonderful thing it is, therefore, that in 1996 Diane Simons and her colleague, the late Jane Hardester, decided to create the South Bay Children’s Choir so that children could do what is most necessary for them to do: join with their peers, dedicate themselves to a strict discipline, and create something beautiful.

The choristers are given a world-class musical education, promoting the highest standard of excellence. The quality of sound they produce, their intonation, blend, and phrasing, are every bit as fine as the celebrated Vienna Boys’ Choir or the King’s College Choir.

Based at El Camino College, the choir is com-

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Through this musical experience, children come to see and celebrate what is traditionally called ‘the pure, the bright, the beautiful.’

LEFT Diana Simons,

the director of the South Bay Children's Choir until her retirement in 2020. Gordon Dressler/Courtesy of South Bay Children's Choir RIGHT Christina Clare, C.J. Clare Artworks

posed of children from various communities in the Los Angeles area and has become one of the premier vocal ensembles on the West Coast. It has performed at the Los Angeles Music Center and New York’s Carnegie Hall, and appeared at equally prestigious venues in Europe at major choral festivals. It also enriches its own community by visiting retirement homes and participating in fundraising events for religious and arts groups.

Through this musical experience, children come to see and celebrate what is traditionally called “the pure, the bright, the beautiful.” This brings to mind the last pages of “The Brothers Karamazov,” when Alyosha speaks to the schoolboys: “Even if we are occupied with important things, if we attain to honor or meet with great misfortune—still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling.”

In her directorship of the South Bay Choir and her many years as a choral director in schools, Diane Simons has united countless young souls in “a good and kind feeling,” giving them something they will never forget, a view of higher things, a moral compass. Great music doesn’t fade. It plants itself in the mind, it takes root.

Simons, who retired at the end of 2020, has spent her life developing her gifts, studying voice, attend-

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ing concerts, visiting museums, reading, and asking for help from experts in related fields. She had her battles to fight—raising funds was difficult, dealing with the red tape of school and government policies even more so.

There are also personal issues to be considered.

She overcame cancer, she lost loved ones, but nothing affected her quiet and persistent work of more than six decades, the kind of work that holds societies together.

“He who sows with many a tear, shall reap with many a song,” writes the American poet George Burgess. The songs Diane Simons brought into the hearts of so many young—and the many who are no longer young—will have their harvest as well.

Raymond Beegle has performed as a collaborative pianist in the major concert halls of the United States, Europe, and South America; has written for The Opera Quarterly, Classical Voice, Fanfare Magazine, Classic Record Collector (UK), and the New York Observer. Beegle has served on the faculty of The State University of New York–Stony Brook, The Music Academy of the West, and The American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. He has taught in the chamber music division of The Manhattan School of Music for the past 28 years.

A LOV E O F L E A R N I N G T H E BA R D

‘Taming of the Shrew’ and Today’s Sensibilities Shakespeare’s comedy has something to say about relationships in 2021 W R I T T E N B Y G I D E O N R A P PA P O R T

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hakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the story of a man’s choosing a loud and troublesome but rich and beautiful girl for his wife and “taming” her destructive misbehavior, has been for centuries a favorite of audiences. But it has now fallen on hard times. This happened when feminism was converted from the idealism of equal rights for women into resentment for the supposed perennial oppression of women by men.

As a result of that intellectual wind, those who did still want to produce the play would doctor the ending by going against the grain of the text to show Katherine making a mere show of obedience. She would deliver her final speech with ironic winks to the audience, suggesting that she had learned to pretend to be obedient to Petruchio but, in reality, was secretly manipulating him. The whole idea of “taming” her was thus turned into farce, and the resentful in the audience were given a satisfying inversion of power roles to take home with them to justify their resentment.

The unfortunate byproduct of that kind of production was that the audience was robbed of the possibility of experiencing the great reversal that Shakespeare actually dramatized in the play.

The reversal I mean is not the mere subduing of Katherine’s will under the power of Petruchio and her consequent surrender to his government.

Shakespeare meant that power play to be not a goal of Petruchio but merely a tool to achieve what he really wanted. What Petruchio really wanted was what was best for both of them: harmony, a happy union of man and wife. In short, love.

wrapped his wife in a mule’s skin and beat her with a stick.)

Instead, Petruchio shows Katherine what it looks like when someone is being irrational, as was Katherine’s habit. His version of her irrational willfulness produces chaos, causes her to suffer, to go hungry and sleepless. It’s how every parent must train a self-damaging, willful child: “Here is what your behavior looks like and leads to. Do you want that?”

Second, Shakespeare has Petruchio enact this irrationality as if for Katherine’s own sake. He tosses away the food she hungers for because, he says, it’s not cooked as well as she deserves; rips apart the beautiful tailor’s gown as not good enough for her; creates havoc in the bedroom, all “in reverend care of her.” He “kills her in her own humor” by seeming to “kill her with kindness,” countering her selfish willfulness with an equal but opposite selfless willfulness.

The irony, for the audience, is that though Petruchio is creating actual havoc, keeping Katherine miserable in the name of serving her, in reality, he is doing this for her sake. Because in fact, her only path to peace and happiness is the giving up of her own selfish will. Once she has done that, there is no more power struggle; they can live happily ever after.

Rejection of Power Struggle

Finally, Shakespeare dramatizes the achievement of the goal of love with a wonderful rejection of the power-struggle image of marriage in favor of an image of mutual love. It comes after Katherine is fully subdued to Petruchio’s will. She has already called the sun the moon and an old man young because her husband commands her to do so.

When the other wives refuse to come at their husbands’ call, Petruchio commands Katherine to force the other wives to obey. She does so and then gives

Portraying a Higher Goal

How does Shakespeare portray the achievement of that higher goal? In three ways.

First, Shakespeare doesn’t have Petruchio simply cudgel Katherine into obedience. (In the old joke that was one of the play’s sources, a husband

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ABOVE Engraving

of a scene from the works of William Shakespeare; “The Taming of the Shrew,” circa 1590–1592. Archive Photos/Getty Images

her great speech about the hierarchy of duty and the division of labor that must prevail in marriage at its best. The husband is stronger than the wife, but his duty is to use his strength not to oppress her but to defend and care for her, just as her duty is to care for him as best she can and to be grateful.

But here’s Shakespeare’s kicker. At the end of the speech, Katherine offers to place her hand beneath Petruchio’s foot as a symbol of her true obedience to him. And what does Shakespeare have Petruchio do? Step on her hand and crow “Ha! I’ve won! I’m stronger than you and will now oppress you freely!”?

No. He says: “Why there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.” (“Wench” is a term, and “Kate” a nickname, of endearment.)

What does that kiss mean? Not the triumph of power over weakness, but the joy of mutual love.

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Now that both members of the pair are in their right relation to one another in the hierarchy created for their mutual benefit, neither one combating against the other in willfulness but each committed to the other’s good—now they can live happily ever after.

Isn’t this a better image of marriage than the confrontation between two strugglers for power?

Gideon Rappaport has a doctorate in English and American Literature with specialization in Shakespeare. He has taught literature, writing, and Shakespeare at all levels and works as a theatrical dramaturge. He podcasts at Appreciating Shakespeare with Doctor Rap (AppreciatingShakespeare.Buzzsprout.com) and on YouTube, where he also has video lectures at Shakespeare’s Real Take.

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Food “Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it's a start.”

ANTH O NY B O U R DAI N, C H E F AN D AU TH O R

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FOOD

Leidenheimer Baking Company

Breaking Bread, New Orleans Style For 125 years, the Leidenheimer bakery has been making po-boy loaves and other breads central to the city’s culinary traditions W R IT TE N BY M E L AN I E YO U N G

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ew Orleans is passionate about its bread, especially when it comes to the po-boy. Some say the city’s signature sandwich, usually stuffed with fried oysters, shrimp, roast beef, sausage, or meatballs, isn’t the real deal unless it’s served on a locally baked Leidenheimer loaf. “The most important part of the po-boy is the bread,” said Joanne Domilise,

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one of the family members who runs Domilise’s Po-Boy & Bar. “Leidenheimer’s bread has a crispy crust and is light and airy inside. It’s not bready or doughy like a hoagie or submarine. If you don’t have the right bread, it’s just not a po-boy.”

Like Domilise’s, and many other local institutions, the G.H. Leidenheimer (pronounced LYE-den-high-

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mer) Baking Company is a century-old family food business. It’s been a hub of New Orleans French bread baking for 125 years.

A Family Legacy

LEFT An old photo

of the bakery’s exterior. All photos

courtesy of Leidenheimer Baking Co. BELOW Bakery

workers in the early years.

Founder George Leidenheimer immigrated to New Orleans from Deidesheim, Germany in the late 1800s, and established his namesake bakery in 1896. Initially, he made the dark, dense brown breads popular in his homeland. But he found success perfecting lighter French-style breads to complement the local cuisine, which draws from the bounty of the Gulf waters and the city’s Creole and Acadian heritage. As the nation’s interest in regional American cooking and artisan foods grew over the years, and New Orleans became a tourism hub known for its outstanding restaurants, recognition for Leidenheimer’s distinct breads grew.

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Being a local family-run business was also important. “Family culture is everything in New Orleans,” said Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, a fourth-generation member of the Leidenheimer family. “People return home to this city to be with their families. That’s why it has many multigenerational families who run businesses.”

W ha n n’s g ra nd mot her wa s G e orge Leidenheimer’s only daughter, Josephine. Her husband, Robert J. Whann Jr., took over the company with his brother, Richard. Sandy Whann joined the company in 1986, after college, and today, he runs it with his sister, Katherine. “I’ve been fortunate during my 35-year tenure to work with Katherine to manage the company. My brother-in-law, Mitch, has served as operations manager for 20 years. My son, William, and daughter, Katie, are now also involved with the company.”

FOOD

Leidenheimer’s is the only bread in town with that crackly crust. It’s both an art and a science to make it with such consistency.

J U S T I N K E N N E D Y, G E N E R A L M A N A G E R A N D H E A D C H E F A T PA R K WAY B A K E R Y A N D T AV E R N

Whann takes carrying on the family baking tradition seriously. You won’t see a gluten-free loaf coming out of this bakery. “We produce traditional New Orleans French bread, and we are blessed that we are kept busy doing it. When we are approached about doing something new we have to consider it very carefully. We are not going to jump on the bandwagon and bend to trends,” he said.

Since 1904, Leidenheimer’s baking headquarters have been in a large white brick building on Simon Bolivar Avenue in the central city. Many of the company’s 100 or so employees represent multiple generations. “Being family-run with many long-tenured employees is a potent combination for success. We have route salesmen who have been with us over 40

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years, and many bakery employees for 20 years,” said Whann.

A Time-Honored Process

My mother used to tell me New Orleans’s bread has a unique texture because of the water. Whann acknowledged that the local water has a good pH level for making bread, but explained the time-honored process in further detail.

Leidenheimer’s bread is made with flour, yeast, water, and a little salt and sugar. Lard was removed in the 1960s and replaced by small amounts of soybean oil. The flour is milled from a high-gluten spring wheat, sourced in the Dakotas and shipped to Ardent Mills near Baton Rouge. The company has

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been milling flour for Leidenheimer’s for 70 years.

“We start with the best ingredients and let time and temperature do their work through natural fermentation,” Whann said. “All our po-boy loaves are handstretched. Our bakery workers know by touch when the dough is right, from how much water to add to how long to stretch it to achieve that light consistency.” Once the dough is ready, the baking process involves copious amounts of steam and monitoring the temperature to achieve just the right texture.

Weather is also an important factor. “New Orleans is an inhospitable place for bakers. We have two seasons: It’s either hot and cold [in the winter] or hot and hotter [in the summer],” Whann said.

“Our bakers need to be aware of the weather conditions since the dough is sensitive to atmospheric conditions such as humidity and temperature. “For French bread, which is inherently light, on a day with 100 percent humidity, it acts like a sponge. We have to bake the bread more to keep its texture. On colder days, we need to bake the bread less.”

pastries, or breads. But when it comes to New Orleans French bread, loyalists always look to Leidenheimer’s. “Leidenheimer’s is the only bread in town with that crackly crust. It’s both an art and a science to make it with such consistency,” said Justin Kennedy, general manager and head chef at Parkway Bakery and Tavern. They sell about 2000 sandwiches a day. “We lightly toast our bread to bring out that crunch even more.”

That loyalty transcends distance. At Local Catch Bar and Grill in Santa Rosa, Florida, chef Adam Yellin, a transplant from New Orleans, only uses Leidenheimer bread for the restaurant’s po-boys.

“When I was living in New Orleans, we’d squeeze the bread a little and listen for the outside crunch to know it was fresh,” he recalled. “Good to the last crumb,” is Leidenheimer’s slogan—and it’s true. New Orleanians know to ask for extra napkins and a crumb catcher when they tear apart a pistolet or devour a po-boy. All that crust leaves a beautiful mess of crumbs!”

The Po-Boy: Perfect End-To-End Legendary Loaves

FAR LEFT All po-

boy loaves are hand-stretched by bakers.

LEFT The fourth-

generation owners, Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, and Katherine Whann.

Southern Foodways Alliance

Leidenheimer produces a small variety of artisan breads, sold locally and distributed nationally— there are three main types. Its signature pistolet is an oblong loaf with a very crisp crust and a fluffy interior—a texture many compare to cotton candy. Available in different sizes, up to 12 inches long, the pistolet is usually served warm, wrapped in white napkins, at fine dining restaurants like Commander’s Palace and Galatoire’s.

“I can always tell locals from the visitors when our pistolet is brought to the table,” Whann said. While visitors reach for a fork and knife, “locals just grab the bread and tear it apart with their hands to share with their table companions.” Either way, the lightas-air loaf is heavenly slathered with butter.

The po-boy loaf is a 32-inch-long French bread loaf used for the namesake sandwich. Unlike a traditional French baguette, which has tapered ends, a po-boy loaf, like the pistolet, is uniform from end to end. The muffaletta is a large, round, seeded bread used to make a sandwich by the same name.

Another New Orleans icon, the muffaletta sandwich is a savory combination of salami, ham, provolone cheese, marinated olives, and giardiniera, said to have been created in 1906 by Central Grocery in the French Quarter, to feed the Italian immigrants who worked at the nearby dockyards.

Locals Loyal to the Last Crumb

New Orleans has many family-run bakeries known for their signature products, whether cakes,

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The history of the po’boy explains how the unique loaf for the sandwich was created. Louisiana-born brothers Bennie and Clovis Martin worked as streetcar conductors before opening Martin Brothers Restaurant in the French Quarter in 1922. In 1929, when the streetcar workers went on strike, the Martin Brothers, sympathetic to the workers’ plight, gave them free sandwiches filled with fried potatoes, gravy, and bits of roast beef on French bread loaves. When a striking worker would come into the restaurant, one of the brothers would call out, “Here comes another poor boy.”

As Whann tells the story: “Back then, the bread was a traditional French baguette with tapered ends. The person who received the middle portion of the sandwich made out like a bandit, but those with the ends were not as fortunate. The Martin Brothers asked a local baker, John Gendusa, to make a 32-inch loaf that could be cut into equal-size sandwiches. No one would be stuck with the ends.”

The sizable, shareable sandwich was a hit and became part of the Martin Brothers regular menu.

Now, the ubiquitous sandwich can be found on many menus, from small po-boy shops to fine restaurants throughout New Orleans and beyond.

Melanie Young writes about wine, food, travel, and health. She is the food editor for Santé Magazine, co-host of the weekly national radio show “The Connected Table LIVE!” and host of “Fearless Fabulous You!” both on iHeart.com (and other podcast platforms). Instagram@ theconnectedtable Twitter@connectedtable

FOOD RECIPES

Alabama-Inspired

White BBQ Sauce Chicken Makes 4–10 pieces

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est of the Mississippi, beef is the king of slowcooked barbecue. But the further east one travels, cows make way for pigs. The pigs get slowroasted whole or in pieces. The Boston butt is the most common cut for slowly cooking in a smoker.

Instead of fighting over cuts of meat or which animal, east of the Mississippi the fighting is over the sauce. Mustard sauces, vinegar sauces, spicy sauces, and sugary ketchup-based sweet sauces have been known to provoke intra-family fights.

Northern Alabama has given way to something altogether different. Robert Gibson of Big Bob Gibson’s Barbecue in Decatur, Alabama, came up with a white sauce most often referred to as an Alabama white barbecue sauce. Though it works with pork, Gibson used it for chicken. It has spread throughout the region. Though still not common in the Carolinas, parts of Georgia and Mississippi have embraced it. My family has completely embraced it, but we ran into a problem a year ago.

A lot of white barbecue sauces have horseradish, which my wife detests. I stumbled upon a recipe without it. The signature ingredient was a chicken marinade made by Lea and Perrin’s. But the company discontinued the marinade. After many attempts, I finally called the company and asked for help in recreating the essential flavor profile I use in my white barbecue sauce and my wife has finally given her seal of approval.

Here’s what you need to know: Use chicken breasts. Cut them into large strips. Marinate them in half the sauce for at least four hours. Divide the other half of the sauce in two. Simmer one on the stove, where it’ll slowly brown in color. Use the other to baste the chicken. Also, there’s no slow cooking here. Put it on a hot grill.

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4 to 10 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut diagonally into strips 3 cups mayonnaise 2/3 cup apple cider vinegar 1/2 cup lemon juice 4 tbs sugar 4 tbs cracked black pepper or 1 tbs ground black pepper 4 tbs white wine (Sauterne preferably or Pinot Grigio) 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp dry mustard powder 1 tsp kosher salt 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Whisk together all the ingredients for the marinade.

Add chicken strips to a gallon zip-lock bag.

Pour one-half of the sauce over the chicken and marinate in the refrigerator for 4 to 8 hours.

With the second half of the sauce, use 1/4 to 1/2 of it for basting the chicken while it’s on the grill—brushing every few minutes and flipping the chicken over halfway through—and heat, over medium-low heat, the remainder, stirring occasionally, until steaming and becoming light brown on top.

Use the heated sauce as a dipping sauce or finishing sauce on the chicken.

Erick Erickson is a nationally syndicated radio host who lives in Macon, Georgia. He is a former lawyer and political commentator for Fox News. He cooks to avoid the news.

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Photo courtesy of Mike Hultquist, author and creator of www.ChiliPepperMadness.com

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Georgia Pub-Style

Smoked Chicken Wings WRIT TE N BY E RI CK E RI CKS O N

Introduction

Brine:

C

hicken wings are normally fried. They’re not exactly a healthy choice. But smoked wings are something else entirely. Depending on the rub of choice, they can be spicy, smokey, or both. The difficulty with smoked wings is the skin. If not done correctly, the skin gets rubbery and chewy instead of crispy.

Piedmont Brewery, a brewpub in downtown Macon, Georgia, has mastered the smoked wing with a crispy skin. I set out to conquer their recipe, if only because I can’t get there as much as I would like.

The hardest part of the recipe is figuring out the skin.

After much research and calls to chefs, I discovered the secret: baking powder. The baking powder dries out the skin as the wings smoke, making them crack and crisp up. In addition, I discovered that I like mine better than anyone else’s.

Now, Sunday nights at my house are spent with a pile of smoked wings, bourbon, cigars, and conversation on my front porch. I’m always responsible for the wings, and the recipe is so incredibly easy that I don’t sweat it.

There’s one tip: Buy the frozen wings in your local grocery store. They tend to be pre-brined, so they’re less likely to dry out. You can also throw them on the smoker frozen if you need to. If you can’t find them, use my brine recipe for 4 to 6 hours.

The recipe is very easy—1 hour with a temperature increase halfway through. Frozen wings can be used from their frozen state. Just toss them in the baking power mixture. Just don’t expect the skin to be as crispy.

3 cups boiling water 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup kosher salt 2 cans of Miller Lite Boil the water and add to a large container.

Dissolve the salt and sugar. Add enough ice to bring the temperature down to room temperature. Add the beer. Add the chicken wings and brine for 4 to 6 hours in the fridge.

Wings:

Chicken Wings 1 tbs baking powder per 24 wings 2 tbs your favorite rub per 24 wings 1 cup barbecue sauce (optional)

et a smoker to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. I use my RecTeq pellet grill or Big Green Egg, but any smoker works or a grill set for indirect heat.

If using frozen wings, thaw them (see note). Pat dry with paper towels. In a small bowl, mix the baking powder and your favorite rub. I love Lanes BBQ Sweet Heat or Spellbound rubs. They’re my go to rubs, unless I really want hot. Then I use Derek Wolf’s Nashville Hot Chicken Rub from Spiceology.

By either sprinkling thoroughly or tossing the wings in a large bowl, thoroughly cover them in the baking powder and rub mixture.

Place on the smoker, skin side up. Smoke for 30 minutes. Then turn heat up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Flip the wings over and cook for another 30 minutes. Don’t worry if the temperature never actually gets up to 450 degrees in that 30 minutes. Some pellet grills will struggle to get past 400 degrees. If you’re using a barbecue sauce, take the wings off after 20 minutes, toss in the sauce, then put them back on for the final 10 minutes.

Erick Erickson is a nationally syndicated radio host who lives in Macon, Georgia. He is a former lawyer and political commentator for Fox News. He cooks to avoid the news.

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Photo by luchezar/ E+/Getty Images

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Cooking Like a Colonist How Frank Clark, master of historic foodways at Colonial Williamsburg, is keeping our young nation’s culinary history alive WRIT TE N BY ALE X AN DR A G R E E LE Y

All photos courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg

A

s a young kitchen apprentice at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Frank Clark faced a challenging task. To demonstrate his skills, he had to prepare a three-course meal for eight guests at the Governor’s Palace.

On the menu: onion soup, roasted leg of lamb, house-salted and -smoked Virginia ham, salmon with shrimp sauce, savory cheesecake, battered and fried cauliflower, and French-style chicken— all for the first course. For the second course, there were fried crab cakes, Italian-style asparagus, carrot pudding, eggs a la crème, fried beefsteaks in ale sauce, potato balls, and apples in surprise (custard-filled, meringue-coated baked apples). A third course of candied almonds and ginger, strawberry fritters, a marzipan hedgehog, and chocolate and lemon creams finished the meal.

The guests enjoyed the feast, and Clark passed the test.

A native of Williamsburg, Clark has been working full-time at Colonial Williamsburg—a historic, 301-acre living history museum—since 1988. His mother had worked as a trainer there for 30 years, and he started when he was a college student. By chance, when he was leading school tours one summer, management moved him to the kitchen to help out.

“After working there for two summers, a full-time job came up, and I became an Historic Foodways apprentice,” he said.

Today, as the site’s master of Historic Foodways, he researches, cooks, and displays colonial recipes to keep our nation’s culinary history alive.

Early American Life

When Clark started his kitchen work, the cookbooks of the 18th century were his primary resource. “I read them and was fascinated by them,” he said. He started researching all that existed in printed cookbooks from the period, often going to all the local libraries to find them. “Now the internet has helped me and other food historians. I can just look online,” he said.

“The key to reading the 18th-century text is knowing that it is all set out in paragraphs,” he said.

Reading a recipe was like reading a story, not just a list of ingredients and instructions. He learned to follow the language of the time. For example, a piece of butter might be measured as “the size of a hen’s egg, or a walnut, or a nutmeg.” Some writers were better than others, he noted. Sometimes crucial details were left out, and he and his staff would have four different interpretations of the same recipe.

Despite the challenges of interpretation, the cookbooks provided valuable insights into how early Virginians cooked, ate, and lived. “Learning how people eat tells about their religion, society, and quirks of life,” Clark said. “Primarily, pork and corn were the markers of early American diets.”

Clark noted that Virginians are known even today

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PREVIOUS PAGE & ABOVE An array of

dishes cooked the way they would have been during America’s colonial times.

RIGHT Frank

Clark, Colonial Williamsburg’s resident master of historic foodways.

for their salted pork. They also ate different animal parts, including offal, for which many recipes existed—such as one for a whole barrel of pickled beef tongues. He described another recipe for pickled asparagus, which called for dipping bundled asparagus held by their roots into boiling water, then placing the bundle into a mix of basically vinegar and salt. “These are recipes you don’t see in a Betty Crocker cookbook,” he said.

He considers the recipes to be a way to teach today’s people about how much healthier the 18th-century traditional diet was, because there were no modern-day processed foods.

“We were governed by seasonality in this period, and most of our food came from a 20-mile radius around town,” Clark said. In Williamsburg, few—if any—households were self-sufficient, so people relied on the market. “The supplies in the market were provided by the many small farmers and households that surrounded the town. There is also lots of evidence that free and enslaved African Americans provided much of the seafood and poultry [there].”

Clark also noted that the area was “part of one of the largest trade empires the world had ever seen.”

Imported goods from other British colonies, from Indian spices to Jamaican sugar and rum, were “available to all who could afford them.”

Meals weren’t comparable between people of differing economic status. For the wealthy, it was all about offering as many choices as possible, and they would employ several skilled cooks who could prepare decorative foods and table settings. Meals at the Governor’s Palace were lengthy, bountiful feasts, with multiple dishes at each course.

When the middle class entertained, “they would try to offer choices like the wealthy, but they would not have as much food nor as many choices, and would probably not have much in the way of decorations,”

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Clark said. Families in poorer households might have used salted pork to flavor other ingredients.

Living History

Of course, times have changed. But to keep the culinary history alive, Colonial Williamsburg maintains two still-operating kitchens: at the Governor’s Palace for formal meals and at the James Anderson Armory for more casual meals.

Dressed in colonial garb, Clark and his staff prepare meals in these kitchens at least four days per week, setting out four or five different dishes using 18th-century recipes. “The cookbooks are a wonderful resource. We cannot dig up a 200-year-old pie, but [we] can make it again by using the recipes in the cookbooks,” he said.

While visitors aren’t able to taste the displayed dishes, they can dine at several onsite taverns and other eateries. Clark consults with the chefs there, especially with the goal of getting 18th-century foods into the taverns. He’s pleased that they’ve captured the essence of early American cooking.

Although he’s not a trained chef, Clark treasures his cooking life: “This is the best cooking job on earth. I get the joy of cooking without the stress of a restaurant grind. ... I can take my time and enjoy talking to our guests as I go.”

He has also embraced what he learned on the job.

“It has given me skill sets I never thought I would have—I can butcher a cow, salt meat, and bake bread,” he said. “It has built up my understanding of where we are from, and what is the process to go through before we can cook and eat.”

Alexandra Greeley is a writer and editor with more than 20 years of experience. Her work has appeared in the National Catholic Register, the Vegetarian Times, and others. She has written 36 cookbooks.

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“We were governed by seasonality in this period, and most of our food came from a 20-mile radius around town.”

FRANK CLARK, FOOD HISTORIAN

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The Great Outdoors “Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life ... Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”

J O H N M U I R , E A R LY A D V O C A T E F O R T H E P R E S E R VA T I O N O F WILDERNESS IN AMERICA

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Reflections From a Night on a Cliffside Lured by the opportunity of adventure, I agreed to climb the Lost Arrow Spire, the cliff beside one of America’s tallest waterfalls. But despite the challenge of the climb, my real trial began once we got to the top WRIT TE N BY B E NTO N CR AN E

L

ast year, my son Kyle and I were invited to join a climbing expedition with my good friend and client, Joe, and his son, Sam. Joe has been training Sam in hopes that he’ll become the youngest person to ever climb the famed El Capitan, a 3,000foot vertical wall in Yosemite Valley that most consider the mecca of the climbing world.

To break the record, they have to make the climb before Sam turns 11—he’s currently 7—and Joe prepares a big training expedition each year to ensure their preparation.

Last year’s destination was Lost Arrow Spire, a solid granite spire that juts out from the side of a

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cliff next to the famed Yosemite Falls—one of the tallest waterfalls in North America. Lost Arrow Spire stands approximately 2,700 feet above the valley floor.

To be clear, my son and I both are merely casual rock climbers. I agreed to go because I’m a sucker for adventure and new experiences. Kyle was 10 at the time, and hesitant to say yes—that is, until his younger sister offered to go in his place. Then he had no choice but to commit.

The Plan

Fortunately for us novices, this trip would be “light”

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on climbing, since we wouldn’t be climbing from the bottom up. Instead, we would start at the top and descend into The Notch, where the spire meets the main cliff. Then, we would climb the spire, camp on its face, and finally, return to the starting point via a Tyrolean traverse—think uphill zipline.

That didn’t mean it would be easy. In order to prepare, we put together a training schedule including practice climbs in a local canyon and exercises to freshen our rappelling skills, which we’d developed in the past during our family canyoneering trips.

Kyle and I also spent time practicing rope climbing on the front porch of our home.

Father-Son Time

LEFT AscentXmedia/ E+/Getty Images BELOW A climber

summits Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite.

Jonathan Kingston/ Getty Images

Even though we hadn’t started our adventure yet, we were already getting to spend some great oneon-one time together. I didn’t give it much thought at first, but the preparation for the trip was creating unique opportunities to bond and deepen our trust in each other.

The day of the adventure was filled with all the excitement and butterflies in the stomach that you would expect. Thankfully, the whole mission would

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be led by elite climbers who could take care of all the ropes and rigging. Joe, Sam, Kyle, and I would be free to focus on the experience—and it was quite an experience!

The rappel down to the spot where we would begin our climb was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating, but it was nothing compared to the moment of truth—climbing the spire. This was the part of our adventure where the magnitude of what we were attempting finally hit us, and where my parenting skills would be put to the test. As we prepared for the ascent, Kyle froze, thinking he wouldn’t be able to continue. And I couldn’t blame him—I, too, was way outside of my comfort zone.

As parents, my wife and I always wrestle with finding the proper balance when it comes to pushing our children to do more; overall, we want to challenge them to grow while also letting them make decisions for themselves. But at that moment, on the face of a rock wall towering above Yosemite Valley, there was only one option, and that was to climb. It was tough love on my part, but Kyle fought back tears as he rose to the challenge, and we began the climb, making it to the top of the spire without incident.

T H E G R E AT O U T D O O R S

wrong tonight, all we could do was dangle there and survive until morning, when the crew could come to rescue us. The lack of options made me feel incredibly claustrophobic. I know that sounds weird, given the vastness of the expanse we were suspended in, but I felt very, very enclosed—and my fatherly instincts hated that feeling. I despised the idea of not having plans B and C for taking care of Kyle.

Bittersweet Success

While that would have been adventure enough for Kyle and me, it turned out that climbing was much easier than sleeping. In order to allow enough time for the climb, we had to spend the night on the cliff face, camping on a little platform our guides had set up—it was the coldest, most sleepless night of my life.

I learned something about myself that night, as I lay there shivering, trying to keep Kyle warm and calm: My Boy Scout, be-prepared brain was in high gear trying to think through all of the if-then scenarios. I was thinking about the various things that could go wrong, and how I would respond in each scenario. It turns out that I do this a lot—constantly thinking about plans B, C, and D—this has been one of my strengths in both business and life.

I adapt very quickly, probably because I have already prepared in my mind.

But on the cliffside that night, every single one of the if-then scenarios cycling through my brain came to the same conclusion: If something goes

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Life in the Moment

But there was something else I realized that night: I was fully present with my son. As a business owner and entrepreneur, there’s always a phone call, text, or email that wants to pull me away from the important moments with those who mean the most to me.

That night, the same isolation that precipitated my anxiety about caring for Kyle, also meant that I had no distractions, nothing to pull me out of the adventure the two of us were sharing.

The whole climb, from start to finish, forced me to be fully present—it was Kyle, me, and a cliff face

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But there was something else I realized that night: I was fully present with my son. As a business owner and entrepreneur, there’s always a phone call, text, or email that wants to pull me away from the important moments with those who mean the most to me.

that tested both of us.

We completed the climb the next day with an immense feeling of relief, but also a feeling of pride— very few people in the world had done what we had just done. The entire experience was every bit as scary as you might imagine, and neither Kyle nor I could eat until the adventure was over, because our nerves had our stomachs wound tightly in knots.

It was really, really hard. And it was really, really amazing. Kyle learned that he’s capable of much more than he thinks, and I’m forever grateful for that night we spent dangling from the famous Lost Arrow Spire. I’ve since retired from sleeping on cliffsides, but not from taking adventures with my children—adventures that challenge us, grow our bond, and give us memories that will never fade.

Benton Crane is the CEO of Harmon Brothers, the ad agency behind the most viral ads in internet history.

Benton and his wife Brittany live in Utah, and love to explore the outdoors with their four children.

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FAR LEFT AscentXmedia/ Stone/Getty Images BELOW Benton

Crane and his son Kyle during their climb up Lost Arrow Spire.

Courtesy of Benton Crane

T H E G R E AT O U T D O O R S

The Wilds Return Why Eastern Kentucky has become a conservation and environmental success story W R I T T E N B Y C H R I S M U S G R AV E / P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y D A N I E L U L R I C H

T

he past 20-plus years of mass media reporting on the environment has been dominated by predictions of cataclysmic catastrophe and mayhem, although during my life, I’ve seen a very different story.

Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, deer were few, with no bear, coyotes, turkeys, mountain lions, bald eagles, and certainly no elk. Today, all of these species are present again. Positive things are happening. Wildlife is naturally returning and many

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species are rebounding with streams cleaner than they’ve been in decades.

How can this be? For years, doomsayers have warned about the end of nature if we didn’t turn the American way of life on its head; they may find it ironic that capitalism funds the successful environmental protections that we do have.

Recently, I took my family to the Salato Wildlife Center in Frankfort, Kentucky. Throughout that gem, you can find the answers of how this can be.

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Blight and Restoration

How did the dearth of nature come to be in the first place?

At the turn of the century, the chestnut blight in the eastern part of the country—where strong, rot-resistant chestnut trees that grew since time immemorial fell in mere decades—along with irresponsible clear-cut logging led to ancient forest floors in the mountains to be washed out. The ecology, flora and fauna, and economies tied to chestnuts were devastated. The old-growth forests are now lost except for small pockets such as in Blanton Forest in Harlan County.

At the same time, many wildlife populations crashed due to overhunting and habitat loss. The Great Depression caused remaining species such as deer, rabbits, and squirrels to be hunted for food, with no regard for conservation as people struggled to survive and feed their families. As the Depression ended and most places prospered, much

of Appalachia remained impoverished.

Hunting and fishing licenses are the backbone of conservation and restoration efforts. Hunters funded the successful reestablishment of elk, to the point that we now have regular seasons for hunting.

Bad actors of the past made the Surface Mine Reclamation Act necessary. If you’re unfamiliar with the industry, you may be surprised to learn that reclaiming is part of the regular process, and typically leaves the land better than before it was mined.

Why? Because that original land would have washed out about 100 years ago when the chestnut blight ravaged the forest (the restoration of the American chestnut is a subject for another story).

Now, drainage controls are engineered, preventing washout. Native grasses are planted along with nut-bearing trees to promote wildlife. Within a few years, what started out like a scene from “Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome” is a lush paradise that supports diverse wildlife.

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BELOW

If you’re unfamiliar with the mining industry, you may be surprised to learn that reclaiming is part of the regular process.

No better example can be found than that of the privately held Appalachian Wildlife Foundation. It’s in the final stages of building a public educational research station, located in Bell County, Kentucky, where the first mountaintop removal mining site in the United States is. People unfamiliar with the reclamation process have no idea it was mined, and the elk couldn’t care less.

Modern day surface mining is like making sausage: The process is not pretty but the end result is great. The location of the wildlife foundation several decades ago more resembled the surface of Mars or the moon as the top of the mountain was removed of the overburden in order to reach the valuable coal seams below. When coal is too close to the surface, the ground is not stable and it’s not safe to mine underground. To access this coal, the ground above must first be removed.

It is only fitting this wildlife sanctuary was once paraded by those opposed to mining as an example of how awful mining is, because active mining is ugly. This short-sighted view ignored the big picture and the responsible and forward-thinking

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stewardship by the land owners. When mining was first completed and the reclamation process started, the first few years the land was home to only grasses and low brush and briers taking hold.

After a few years and seasons, the soil develops as vegetation decays returning to soil. Per the requirements based on extensive research, the soil is only compacted to certain point to prevent run-off, but not so tight as to prevent trees from easily re-establishing, (early reclamation law required soil be very compacted, inadvertently thwarting vegetation, and thus wildlife returning).

Today most people wouldn’t know Boone’s Ridge was a mine, (with limited active mining still occurring). This is true of most surface mining today, as only contour mining is permitted, where the peak must remain and only the outer edge of a coal seam is mined creating a bench. This bench is filled post-mining and the mountain is returned to its original contours. Once these location are covered with significant hardwood trees, they are indistinguishable from other parts of the hillside not mined to the untrained eye.

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I saw a wild bald eagle about seven miles from Lexington, Kentucky, just last week. Last summer, a black bear was spotted downtown near a University of Kentucky hospital.

These occurrences were unthinkable 30 years ago.

Education Works

The many creeks and streams in the region were once clogged with decades of trash and sewage from straight pipes.

Today efforts by private volunteer groups such as PRIDE (Personal Responsibility In a Desirable Environment) remove trash from the streams every April. Over the past decades, septic tanks and new sewage treatment plants have almost ended raw sewage discharge. As a result, fish and aquatic species are flourishing, and even beavers and river otters are returning.

I currently serve on the board of the Kentucky Environmental Education Council, which has played a key part in cultural change for the last several decades by exposing Kentucky students to environmental issues and terms.

Yet another factor changing culture is simply time: The outlaw hardscrabble poacher culture borne of desperate times of the Great Depression

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has to a large degree died out or become too old and feeble to do much harm. Less fortunate segments of society now have social safety nets and improved infrastructure making it easier to meet basic needs unavailable in the past.

This certainly has helped remove the pressure of necessity to subsist. Most sportsmen today buy licenses and make good faith efforts to follow the seasons, limits, and regulations.

Private corporations can play a role as well, often the ones contributing to funds that make muchneeded conservation efforts possible.

Having studied the history of energy and environmental law and being a sportsman myself, I’ve heard much blaming of corporations, industry, and hunters of today for the harms of the past.

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Education has helped dispel some of these misconceptions. And yes, we do have some real environmental problems in this world; most have root causes traceable to the desperation of poverty, corrupt systems of government, or ignorance of the harm of our actions.

For example, when the Soviet Union collapsed, desperation and anarchy nearly wiped out caviar sturgeon in Russia. Corruption happens, too.

Recently, when a mine in Pike County started receiving complaints from surrounding neighbors, it turned out the federal mine inspector was accepting bribes to not enforce the law. Once discovered, it was stopped and the inspector and operator are now in jail. Ignorance of the consequences of actions factors into these environmental problems. Take the

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example of DDT pesticides; once the harm was discovered, regulations caught up and banned its use.

I saw a wild bald eagle about seven miles from Lexington, Kentucky, just last week. Last summer, a black bear was spotted downtown near a University of Kentucky hospital. These occurrences were unthinkable 30 years ago.

LEFT & ABOVE Wildlife is

returning to Eastern Kentucky in what might be considered an environmental success story. Sporting license fees and private funding have been the backbone of conservation and restoration efforts, and even cultural awareness is increasing.

Chris Musgrave is a Kentucky attorney, farmer, and policy professional in energy, environment, agriculture, education, elections, history, and government administration and affairs. He enjoys hunting, fishing, and writing music and articles for fun. He is also a board member of the Kentucky Environmental Education Council and Historic Preservation Review Boards.

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