The Battle of Piedmont, Part 4

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

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It seems that General Hunter had sent all other reserve force he could muster, such as dismounted cavalry, teamsters etc., everything that could carry a musket, by a long, roundabout road to come up in the rear of this blooming Rail Pen, and when he knew they were pretty near up he ordered us forward. The thing was timed pretty near right and the result was the Rebs couldn't stand the fire in front and rear, some of them lit out, over 1500 surrendered and any quantity of them passed in their chips. Among the latter was their commander, General Jones, who we found laid out inside the rail pen with a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead.

We all felt good at having licked them, this being our first victory, and we could not restrain our feelings, but the sight of dead and wounded Rebs that lay all round us put a damper on our spirits, for the slaughter had been terrible; the effect of the shots from our two Howitzers could be seen in the mutilated forms of the dead and dying Rebs. One poor fellow had been completely skinned the whole length of his back. It must have been done by a piece of rail as he lay on the ground, on his stomach. He was conscious and could talk with us, but one of our doctors who was there said he would not live a minute if we turned him over.

My brother Charlie was a private in Company "F" and all through the fight I had kept my eye on him, but after we got inside the rail pen I could not see him and none of the boys in his Company could tell me anything about him so I made up my mind he must have been hit in the last charge and I started on a hunt for him. I went all over the Ground we had traversed, looked at all of the bodies that lay in that part of the field, but could not find him. Then I went into the woods opposite the rail pen where our Howitzers had been but he was not there.

I found a lot of our wounded men down the hill near the stone wall where we drove the Rebs out but no Charlie. While I was making inquiries from some of them our Assistant Surgeon, Dr. Harrington, came up to me and says, "Here Sergeant, you are just the man I want. I want you to take this canteen and go down to the white house off there and tell the Medical Director to fill it with whiskey, and you bring it back to me as quick as you can. "But," says I "he will not give me any whiskey". "That's so" he says "but you wait". With that he took a memorandum book out of his pocket, tore out a leaf and wrote an order for the Medical Director to deliver to Sgt. Setchell one canteen of whiskey for use of wounded on the field, signed his name as the Asst. Surgeon of the 18th Connecticut Volunteers.

I started off on a run, but as it was about a mile to the white house he pointed out I did not run all the way. When I had slowed down to a walk I took out the order he had written and read it over. All of a sudden the idea struck me there was a chance for a speculation in it so I made a figure 2 out of the "1" and put an "s" on the end of "canteen" and I had an order for two canteens of whiskey.

I found the house and the Medical Director and he filled my canteen and the Doctor's without any question. Then I hunted the house for my brother. The house was full of wounded men, and the piazza which went all around it, was too; but no Charlie. Some of the wounded told me there was more in the barn so I went there and there I found him sitting on the barn floor with a pipe in his mouth smoking away for dear life. His arm and hand were bandaged up. He had been hit by a Rebel bullet right in the centre of the inside of his right wrist just as he was ramming a bullet into his musket while we were going in on the last charge. The bullet did not go clear through but stuck between two bones in his wrist. The Doctors had bandaged it but did not attempt to get the bullet out then, they were too busy.

It was quite painful and I happened to think some of the whiskey I had might help him to bear the pain so I spoke about it and you ought to have seen him smile when I shoved my canteen under his nose. I really thought he would empty it at one suck, as our canteens only held about three pints, but he had to stop to breathe and I got it back with some in it.

After talking with him a little I started for the hill again with my two canteens in my hand. I had not gone but a little ways when I met the Rebel prisoners we captured in the rail pen. They were being marched back to the Staunton turnpike under a strong cavalry guard, and as I passed by a good many asked me for a drink of water but I refused, telling them that it was for our wounded up in the woods. Away in the rear of the column I came to one poor fellow who had been hit by a piece of shell or a splinter from a rail. It had split his lip and chin open clear to the bone and it made a sickish looking wound. He says "For God's sake, Sgt., give me a drink." I says "Yes, you shall have some" and I handed him my canteen and winked at him to keep quiet, and he did, but I shall never forget the look he gave me when he found out what it was, but I could see he had never been punished for holding his breath.

He handed it back after a while and I guess he thought it was a pretty fierce article by the face he made up, and the way he hung on to his lip and chin. He thanked me, and said we might meet again, and I trudged on for the woods again. I slung my canteen over my shoulder and found Dr. Harrington and delivered him his, then I went around and found a good many boys of our Regiment that were wounded and gave them each a drink until my canteen was empty, when I started to find the Regiment.

I found them inside the Rail Pen, where they had made their coffee and most of them had gone to sleep as it was quite dark by this time. I went to one of the fires they had left burning, to boil a cup of coffee, and found our Orderly Sergeant, sewing a pair of Lieutenant's shoulder straps on to his blouse, by the light of the fire.

It seems after the fight he went to our Colonel Ely and asked him if he had meant what he said that day. The Colonel asked "What did I say, Orderly", and Kerr says "You called me Lieutenant."

The End.

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Pat

The Battle of Piedmont, Part 3

Continued...

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

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That was enough for Kerr. He gave out his orders in a voice that was heard far above the noise of guns and everything else, it must have made all the Rebs within two miles of us think the Day of Judgement had come for sure. "Company-A, deploy as skirmishers, forward, double-quick, MARCH" and away they went.

I was always proud of old Company "A", but never more so than that day. With what a vim and snap they started into those woods, and they found lots of Rebs there too, but they lit out mighty quick when Bob Kerr with Company "A" got after them.

We had now gotten pretty near the Rebs' first line of works, which was a stone wall about a foot and a half high with a few rails on top of it. We were ordered to charge and went over it with a rush, driving the Rebs ahead of us like a flock of sheep.

Where I went over the wall a Reb had left his gun leaning up against the rails, and about a dozen cartridges lay on the stone wall. These I put in my blouse pocket, and grabbing the gun, I started on a run to catch up, thinking I at last was to have a chance to shoot back a few times, at least. It is so blamed aggravating to stand up and be shot at and not be able to return the fire, but I was destined to be disappointed, for I had gone but a short distance when the Colonel spied me with the gun. Again his sonorous voice rang out: "Throw away the gun, Sergeant, stick to your flag." Well, you bet, I was mad. I took the thing by the muzzle and wound it around a tree in good shape. I made a pair of twins of it in about two seconds.

As I turned around from the tree I spied a Reb lieutenant skulking off behind a rock. In our rush we had run right past him and he was now trying to get off among the trees to our right. I could run like a deer in those days, had lots of practice (We had been licked in every fight we had had up to that time and had to run) running while on battalion drill, and I went for the lieutenant like a western cyclone, and had nearly reached him when again my beloved Colonel's voice rang out: "Come back, Sergeant, let somebody go after him that's got a gun" and there I had just smashed a gun, and by his orders, too. But I came back, like the cat, and Charlie Thurber had the honor of capturing the blooming Reb, and he had a real live sword and pistol hung to him, too.

We drove the Rebs, that were in our front, a quarter of a mile or so through the woods on top of the hill. Then we came to a cleared space which was probably 500 yards wide, and here we ran up against a snag. For on the opposite side of this clearing the Rebs had build a "Rail Pen", as we boys called it. It was made by driving crotched sticks into the ground, then a rail or two was laid from one crotch to the next one, and then rails were laid slanting on these, one end resting on the ground and the other on the crotched rails. They had plenty of rails and laid them ten or twelve deep with the slant towards our side. They had left small openings for musketry between some of the rails and they made it very warm for us as soon as we left the cover of the trees, as they could lay under their rails and blaze away at us while we could only fire at their blooming rails with about one chance in a thousand of getting a bullet through the small openings.

The cleared space between us and the rail-pen was dish-shaped like a saucer. It sloped down a ways from our side, then flat, then up grade to the rail-pen. We halted in the woods at the edge of the clearing and blazed away at the rail-pen for quite a while, but I guess it was labor lost on our part, while the Rebs returned our fire and did some execution, although our boys took advantage of the trees and kept cover as well as they could. Finally Colonel Ely sent for our Brigade Commander, Colonel Moore, a German, and told him he must have some artillery.

I happened to be close enough to hear the conversation between him and Colonel Moore. The German contended that we could walk right over the rail-pen but our Colonel said No, and he carried his point so Colonel Moore sent up two 12 pond howitzers to Colonel Ely and Ely was happy then.

He had the arms placed in the centre of the woods and directed the firing himself. The very first shot made a hole through that rail-pen you could drive a horse through, and the Rebs rushed out like bees swarming out of a hive. This made a regular picnic for our boys and they improved it by all sending in their little lead pills, until the Rebs got sick and sought the cover of the rails again. Then the Howitzers made a new hole in the rails and the Rebs rushed out and then in again and so we kept it up for two to three hours.

At every shot we would hurrah and the Rebs would answer back with one of their defiant yells, but our boys could see that we were getting the best end of it all the time. As for me I could do no shooting, so had to make up for it in shouting, and you may be sure I had it out in that line. I think, actually, that I strained my voice a little, and it has not got back to its original tone to this day, June 20, 1898.

After a while Colonel Moore thought we had made so many openings in the rails we could charge them and go right through, so he ordered the charge and away we went, but there's where he made a mistake. The lay of the ground was such that the Rebs had a clean sweep at us from the time we left the woods until we got to the openings in the rail-pen and when we got there the Rebs were as thick around each hole as flies around a molasses barrel, so we could not get in and had to return to our first love, "the woods", leaving scores of our noble boys knocked out for keeps between the lines.

Then the Howitzers got in their fine work again and the boys peppered them when they broke cover until finally another charge was ordered and away we went again, clear up to the openings in the rail-pen but could not get in, the result being the same as charge number one. Then we commenced the same old game again; the Howitzers threw their inwards at 'em, our boys' muskets spit at 'em, we all hollered, and kept it up until about five o'clock P.M., when we were ordered to charge again, but this time the result was different.

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Part 4 here

Pat

The Battle of Piedmont, Part 2

Continued from Part 1...

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I found the regiment all in line, waiting to cross some pontoon bridges which had been laid, and which the cavalry were then crossing. Meanwhile I picked the chicken apart. He was black as a hat on the outside, and about half roasted, but two of my chums and myself quickly ate him up, bones and all, except the very toughest one and we thought it was very good eating.

We had hardly finished our meal when we were ordered across the stream, our regiment being the first infantry to cross. We marched a half mile or so into some woods where we were halted and called to attention as General Hunter wanted to make a few remarks to us. I can not recall much that he said except that he expected us to do our duty today and wipe out the stain attached to the Eighteenth Connecticut Volunteers since our last fight at New Market, under General Sigel, where we were badly shipped. We were all as mad as hoppers before he got through as we did not think it was any fault of ours that Sigel got licked, and I think every man made up his mind right then that if we did come up against the Rebs that day some of them would get hurt.

We were soon marched out of the woods into open ground where we formed in line of battle with a strong line of skirmishers some 1500 to 2000 yards in front of us. My company "A" was sent out with the skirmish line, but as I was Right General Guide of the regiment and I did not have a gun, I had to stay with the regiment and took my place on the right of the next company "F". I did not like this arrangement for a cent as I wanted to be with my own company, but a soldier must obey orders so I had to stay.

The bugle sounded "Advance" and we started. The ground was very open and I could see the whole of our line of battle marching in double ranks by regimental front, with the skirmishers out in front; keeping as near in line as possible, and 15 to 20 feet apart. The sight was beautiful, our regiment being on the right of the line and I being the Right Guide brought me as the extreme right man of the command.

We had not gone a great ways before the Rebs opened fire from a hill about three miles directly in front of us, toward which we were marching. At first their shells fell short but as we kept moving toward them they commenced soon to burst in among our skirmishers, doing but very little as the men were so spread out they were a poor mark to shoot. We kept going forward, not very fast, but fast as we could and keep our lines in good shape.

The Rebs kept shelling the skirmishers, they did not fire a single shell at the line of battle. I suppose they wanted to break up our skirmish line and prevent our finding out what kind of works they had in the woods on the hill we were approaching, but we kept on advancing and did not fire a shot in return.

When we had gotten within 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile of the Rebs the right of our line came close to the banks of the same stream we had crossed lower down. It was a warm day and I was very dry so I thought I would run down to the stream and get a drink, and fill up my canteen at the same time. I told Sgt. Charles Carroll of Company "F" what I was going to do, and he handed me his canteen to fill for him. The bank of the stream on the side I went down was some 12 to 15 feet high, but on the other side it was nearly on a level with the stream and beyond were trees and underbrush. I rushed down and dipped up my quart coffee cup full and tipped back my head to drink but did not take but a swallow, for on the opposite side of the stream, some 60 to 70 feet from me, standing partly behind a tree was a Johnnie Reb, loading his gun; and skulking along among the trees and bushes, I caught glimpses of a good many more.

I looked around to sing out to some of our boys but the bank was so high I could not see them and of course they could not see me. Well now -- I don't believe the Rebs could have seen me for the dust I made going up that bank, at any rate it has always seemed to me that I flew, as my feet did not seem to touch the ground until I caught up with the regiment and had told Sgt. Carroll what I had seen. Then we both peered over the bank and saw any number of Johnnies in among the trees and some up in them. At this time we were getting so near to the hill in front that they had opened fire on us with musketry and our boys were beginning to fire back, and our skirmishers had fallen back in rear of the line of battle.

Just at this time I saw our Colonel, William G. Ely (and a better fighter never straddled a horse) in rear of the center of the regiment, so I made a rush for him and told him about the Rebs I had seen on our right.

The Colonel was a very moderate talker, but a very decided one and he says to me, in his moderate way, "Oh No, Sgt., there ain't any Rebs there" but I knew better so I insisted it was so, and, as luck would have it, we were just entering a fringe of woods on the side of the hill, and a bullet cut a twig from one of the limbs; it fell in such a way that the Colonel saw the bullet must have come from the right, and it was very near a line shot for him as he sat on his horse.

He acknowledged the truth at once by exclaiming in his usual tone of voice, though I think his speech was a little quicker, "I believe you are right, Sgt.". At this moment my Company "A" came marching in from the skirmish line with our Orderly Sgt., Robert Kerr, in command (at this time we had no commissioned officers in our company, and in fact there were very few in the regiment, as they were prisoners of war in Richmond.)

Colonel Ely, as soon as he saw Kerr, sang out "Lt. Kerr, deploy your company as skirmishers and clear out those woods."

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Continuing to Part 3...

Pat

The Battle of Piedmont, Part 1

Google's stated corporate mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." They and other tech companies are well on their way, it seems. If you haven't stopped and marveled recently at what's available on the internet, please do so now.

My friend Jackie shared with me a family heirloom of hers: an account of the Civil War Battle of Piedmont, as told by her great-great-grandfather. I'm sure the original would have been handwritten, and I'm curious when this typewritten version I'm holding was created by some earlier preservationist. It's a good story, and by posting it here I might help save it for future generations. My own little contribution to Google's mission, I suppose.

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My recollections of the Battle of Piedmont.

(As related by George Case Setchell to John Ernest Setchell)

(June -- 1898)

Towards night on the fourth day of June, 1864, our command, under General Hunter, arrived at a small river near Piedmont, and were halted on its banks. We could see the advance guard of cavalry scouting the country on the opposite side of the stream, and we knew by their actions that they had either sighted the "Rebs" or knew they were close by.

While we stood watching them an orderly was seen riding furiously down the road right opposite to where our regiment was halted. He had a bundle of dispatches stuck in his belt which he was probably bringing to General Hunter, who was sitting on his horse, about in the centre of our force, which was but a little ways from where we were, although our regiment had the extreme right of the line. The orderly rode his horse pell-mell into the river, the horse stumbled and fell when about 20 feet from the shore, and away went the orderly over his head and down he went out of sight.

There were about then thousand of us watching him, and some of us within 50 feet of where he went down, but we could do nothing to help him as he did not show up after his first plunge. The current was very strong and he was probably weighted down with his carbine, sabre and ammunition, and although there were some five to six hundred men in the river diving for him in less than five minutes they could not find his body or get dispatches.

Of course such an accident cast a gloom over the men, in fact, more of a gloom than to see hundreds killed in a battle, where every-one was doing all he could to gain a victory.

We slept right where we were that night, after a very scanty supper, as we were on half rations, and had been for 8 days. Just about day-break I woke up, feeling quite chilly, as the dew is very heavy in Virginia, and thought I would take a walk around to warm and limber myself up a bit.

Most of the men were asleep, except the guard, and they were about half asleep, too. I walked around until I spied a house and barn about half a mile from where we lay, and, thinking there might be a little chance for foraging, and my stomach seconding the action, I made tracks for it.

General Hunter had issued very stringent orders about foraging and had had as many as a hundred men at a time marching up and down in front of his headquarters, for being caught at it, but that did not deter me, but I kept my eye out for any stray pickets that might be out that way, and reached the house safely, which was so quiet as could be although there were signs that somebody lived there.

I could not see any sign of getting anything in the house, so made for the barn which was but a little way off. I found a small door unhooked and went in, but the barn was as empty as a tin water pail with a hole in the bottom. On the opposite side from where I went in were two big doors and in the bottom of one of them a board was knocked off. While I stood looking at them a chicken came walking in, and you can bet I kept very quiet until it had got some ways away from the hole, then I sidled around and put up a piece of board to prevent its escape, and then the fun commenced.

I chased that chicken all over the barn, almost had him a dozen times but he slipped away, but finally I laid him out with a piece of board, which I threw at him and all the time I was expecting some one would come in and interfere or let the chicken out, but they did not, and I picked him up, tucked him under my blouse and scooted for some bushes, where I picked and cleaned him, built a fire, ran a stick through him and proceeded to roast him by holding him over a blaze. He was about as big as a pigeon, and I was getting along nicely when I heard the bugle call Fall In and away I ran for camp.

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Part 2 here shortly...

Pat

Vote for Eb!

I have carefully avoided writing about politics here; there are a million blogs with that stuff, and I think there's more to life than politics. That being said...

Meaghan's father Eb (Moran) was an alderman here in Evanston for 18 years, winning 5 elections along the way before retiring last year. He had the reputation of being detail-oriented and independent, not especially concerned if he was the only one voting for or against a certain proposal -- he did what he thought was right. That included being in favor of the downtown "tower" project, a mini-skyscraper that a very vocal group of residents opposed with yard signs, letters to the editor, online petitions, rallies, etc. Ah, Evanston.

He decided to run for State Representative late last year, and is now in a 5-person race for the Democratic nomination. The February 2nd primary is effectively the final election, as the Republican party here is practically non-existent, and the November election will be just a formality.

Meaghan's helping with the campaign, and it's been fun to see some of the retail politics at work: nominating petitions, yard signs, t-shirts, meet-and-greets, and the debates. These get pretty detailed treatment from the two local weekly papers, the Evanston Review and the Evanston Roundtable.

The debate coverage is what got me interested in the race, especially in reading how clueless many of the candidates seemed on Illinois' economic woes. Eb was the only one who emphasized the importance of controlling the growth in state government spending, recognizing that just taxing "the rich" more wasn't going to work any better in Illinois than it's working in California. (And it didn't hurt that he's the only pro-life candidate in the race, although that's sure to cost him Democratic primary votes.)

So I agreed to put my formidable rhetorical skills (!) to work for the campaign, and wrote a letter to the editors of the two local papers in support of Eb.

Interestingly the candidate with the most visibility and funding, young Patrick Keenan-Devlin, was in a campaign finance kerfuffle over the weekend. It came to light that more than half of his impressive $117,000 raised from July through December came from a single source: the public employees union AFSCME or its members. They might not be predisposed to state spending restraint, to put it gently.

The letter came together pretty quickly, like these posts usually do, as I tried to balance being forceful and persuasive, being interesting, and being civil. Some of the harder-hitting lines I had to leave out, knowing they could keep a letter from being published:

• "But don't blame [young opponent] for this relationship; that's like blaming the hammer for its relationship to the carpenter. It's just a tool."
• "[Young opponent] seems to look uncomfortable in all his campaign pictures. I suppose you would, too, if you had a union arm up your keister, making your mouth move and your arms flap together."

The finished product is given below -- I had to edit it down to under 250 words, as what I submitted originally was a little longer. I'm hoping it'll run in one or both papers this Thursday. And for those of you here in the 18th district, Democrat or Republican, get out and vote for Eb next Tuesday!

Pat

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Dear Editor:

The 18th District state representative race has been interesting, especially given Illinois' economic state:

-Over the last 10 years the state government's spending has increased significantly faster than revenue

-Illinois is ranked 48th in job creation nationwide over that period, and in fact has fewer jobs than 10 years ago

-The state is ranked 46th in the nation in favorable litigation climate for business

-Our economic outlook overall is ranked 44th

That's not a pretty picture, but it's a clear one. Yet most of the candidates have stressed the need to raise taxes, and one of the kids in the race was recently quoted on his intention to advance "progressive spending priorities". Swell. I'm guessing that doesn't mean reducing the rate of state government spending increases, or improving the business climate to encourage private sector job growth.

One candidate has pledged not to raise taxes, but instead to rein in spending in Springfield: Eb Moran. He's the only candidate to have held elective office and been responsible for balancing spending desires against revenue constraints. He's not carrying the baggage of endorsements from groups that have a stake in continuing the George Ryan – Rod Blagojevich - Michael Madigan approach to state government. Saying "No" takes practice, and is even harder if you've promised a lot of "Yeses" to a lot of special interest groups already.

I encourage you to vote for Eb Moran on February 2nd, and send a voice of fiscal reason to Springfield.

Patrick Harrigan

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Life, The Universe, and Everything

Cosmology is the study of the origin and nature of the universe, and (in some definitions) humanity's place in it. You'd certainly impress people if you introduced yourself as a cosmologist, despite the annoyance of being occasionally mistaken for a cosmetologist.

A work from a college philosophy class has stuck with me for years: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man". Teilhard was a French Jesuit, a paleontologist (he took part in the discovery of Peking Man), and a philosopher/cosmologist. His work got him in trouble with the Vatican, although as time passes it seems like it's regaining a little favor. My course teacher was Fr. Garth Hallett, who probably wanted to stick up for a fellow Jesuit.

I'll have another sip of philosophy juice (tonight's flavor: Jameson!) and share the crux of it, or at least the crux of what I absorbed and/or retained:

1. Consider the milliseconds after the Big Bang, about 14 billion years ago. Subatomic particles started organizing into atoms of greater and greater size and complexity. That transformation still takes place inside stars, via nuclear reactions, but the complexity has peaked -- stars keep making the same mix of atoms, with a maximum atomic weight around 250, as they have for billions of years.

2. But - at some point some atoms organized into molecules, and these increased in size and complexity over time. Interestingly the most complex molecules (DNA) weren't made from the most complex atoms -- instead it's the relatively simple carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen atoms. They were better at combining with each other to create complexity at a higher (molecular) level. It's probably fair to call this process chemical evolution.

3. Evolution of molecules plateaued as well, but continued on a higher level: from DNA to genes, and then up to groups of genes (chromosomes). From there it was on to cells and to groups of cells, i.e. multicellular organisms.

4. Evolution of organisms has continued for billions of years, with humans appearing millions of years ago, and homo sapiens (Latin for "knowing man") arriving at the party about 200,000 years ago. One could make many arguments for humans being the pinnacle of the evolution of organisms, despite our rap music, Larry the Cable Guy, and microwave burritos.

Notice the pattern: atoms "evolved" into greater complexity, but then it was groups of atoms (molecules) that took over. Groups of molecules eventually begat cells, which led to groups of cells working together. So where does it go from here, with people as the highest multicellular organisms? Obviously to groups of people, i.e. organizations. These are formed in myriad ways, and thrive or perish based on how effective they are -- at getting food, fending off disease or external hostile threats (other organizations?), and preventing harmful internal conflict. Families led to tribes led to states/nations, and wham-o, there's a guy walking on the moon -- an inconceivable accomplishment for an individual alone.

Teilhard argued that complexity = "consciousness", with the evolution of man being a giant leap in this area. (This continuum of consciousness from rocks to frogs to people is part of what got him into trouble with the Church.) He died in 1955, but I don't think he'd have been a bit surprised by the internet, with the connections between people around the world leading to some kind of global consciousness ("noosphere"), if you think about it. Right now in some small town in India a guy is posting part of his life story online, while a girl is playing online chess with an old man in Los Angeles, while someone else is checking orders from Brazil for his company's product. How quickly we take it all for granted, and yet these individual social tendrils lead to a connected world.

I won't get into the really tricky part of what we're evolving towards, except that Teilhard called it the "Omega Point", and it has philosophical and theological implications I don't understand the half of. He tried very hard as a Christian and a scientist to keep the whole thing consistent with current teaching in each arena, and to bring it all together; that's probably why it still resonates.

So if you're at a cocktail party and someone cites the fact that humans and chimps share 95% of the same DNA, as if that made us less special, you can chime in (if you're feeling playful) that we share 100% of the same chemical elements, too. Your statement will be just as true and just as fatuous, but you'll know why, thanks to your new friend Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Pat

Elvis: Coda

The sad, slightly shocking news after a nice Christmas break is that we had to put Elvis to sleep yesterday.

He'd been out of sorts for about a week -- the Wednesday before Christmas he ate a bunch of Christmas cookies from the kitchen counter while we were out, so for a few days we thought that was the cause. He went from his usual hyperactive happiness to lethargy, just laying on his favorite chair for the whole day. Given his history I started to suspect he'd eaten some object along with the cookies, even though he wasn't showing the typical "Oops, I guess I shouldn't have" GI symptoms. He wasn't throwing up, but he wouldn't eat anything.

The vet up in Lake Geneva (we spent last week there) examined him on Wednesday and did some quick blood work; everything looked OK, so she gave him a couple of GI meds and asked that we bring him back in a couple of days if he didn't rally.

Yesterday morning Elvis couldn't even stand, let alone walk, and looked to be in obvious pain. I decided to cut our vacation a day short and get him in to our regular vet (and good friend), Dr. Scott Jones at the Northbrook Animal Clinic.

Scott did x-rays looking for some obstruction, but instead found numerous tumors throughout Elvis's lungs. He indicated a) these were secondary tumors, with an unknown primary somewhere, b) there was no possible chemical treatment, and c) he didn't think Elvis would survive any possible surgery, given his condition. That left an easy decision, however sad and shocking. Scott took care of everything after that.

So Elvis gave us nine joyful, exasperating, heartwarming, hyperkinetic, goofy years, and we thank him for that. And I also thank Dr. Jones for rescuing him so many times in the past, and the Friends of Elvis who've been doing the weekday walks this last year and a half. I hope you enjoyed his energetic company as much as we did.

I won't offer up any obvious parallels or deep thoughts here. We'll miss him, but we'll be fine.

Pat

Merry Christmas!

There are still dozens of people in the United States not currently on my Christmas card list, so for you...

Merry Christmas!

(Yeah, it's like that around here.)

The Harrigans

(Note: picture will expand to full size when clicked.)

Pat

Waiting for Kenny

"You call this a snowstorm? Why, when I was a kid..."

We lived in Ashland, Ohio for a couple of years in the late '70's. Ashland is about halfway between Cleveland and Columbus (just off of I-71), so winter storms from the west sometimes steer under Lake Erie and hit hard. That certainly happened in January of 1978, when we got a blizzard they still talk about there.

On winter mornings we boys would get rousted out of bed early by my dad to shovel the driveway. This storm was different: we'd gotten close to 2 feet of snow - schlunk! - and the wind was blowing so hard that there was no way we could keep the driveway clear. After a while we gave up and went back inside, where my dad uncharacteristically accepted our excuse for not finishing a job. (I suppose, too, that it didn't seem useful to him to just drive to the end of the driveway, since the road was impassable.) School was canceled, of course.

One truck driver pulled over to the side of a road in nearby Mansfield during the storm, and his truck got drifted over. No one knew he was even there, so he was stuck in his cab for six days, but was eventually rescued -- cold and hungry, but otherwise OK:

There were cars stranded all up and down the interstate, and the state troopers had been corralling drivers to any rest area they could. The truck stop on the outskirts of Ashland -- the "Stop 250" -- had over 200 people in it. The local radio station was calling for people in town to take some of these stranded travelers into their homes for a day or two. We volunteered, since we were good citizens, and the truck stop manager was a neighbor of ours (Mr. Thurkettle. Really.)

Back then few people had 4-wheel drive, so the local "4x4" club was called into action. They ferried people from the truck stop to various homes around town in their Jeeps, and delivered groceries where needed. I'm sure they were thrilled to be put to work, their hobby suddenly becoming an important asset.

Our houseguests were a woman, her sister, and her young daughter. It turned out that they were traveling downstate to pick up the woman's husband, Kenny, who was being released from prison. My mom took that bit of news in stride, at least outwardly, but it was a secret thrill to us kids. Prison! Ooooh!

The visitors were as nice as could be, of course. We all spent a lot of time playing cards or board games; the only task for us boys was to keep a path shoveled to the end of the driveway, which we had to repeat (thanks to the wind) every couple of hours. I don't remember any of our guests' life stories, if they even shared them; they were pretty frazzled by the whole experience, and just looking forward to the reunion and the trip home.

After a day it worked out that Kenny had made arrangements to have a friend pick him up, and they were going to come to Ashland to get the family when the roads cleared. So we spent Day 3 holed up again, keeping the path shoveled to the street, waiting for Kenny.

By Day 4 the wind had died down, so we got to explore outside a little. The snowdrifts were freakishly large -- swooping sculptures at the corners of houses, from the ground to the roofline. With the other neighborhood kids we made the most awesome snow forts.

Kenny came that day. It was a pretty short visit; they wanted to move along back home, so our guests gathered their stuff and headed out. The only thing I remember about him was his tearful gratitude for taking care of his family.

At the time I didn't really identify with him, as he was a bit player in our four-day drama. (Prison! Ooooh!) But now I try to imagine what Kenny was feeling: stuck in prison after his release, probably watching the news on a crappy little prison black-and-white TV, seeing the storm's death toll mounting (it eventually hit 51). His wife and little girl were out on the road somewhere, and he was powerless to do anything. I'm guessing he said a prayer or two, or ten, and maybe made a bargain with The Big Guy during the ordeal.

His family wound up safe and sound, so I'd like to think he kept up his end of any bargain. Who knows? We shoveled the driveway, the roads got plowed, and after another day or two we got back to school.

Pat

Duke Tumatoe is Not a Real Doctor

Casinos thrive on illusion -- some more than others. But a good bar band is an authentic thing.

I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times, and enjoyed it each time. My favorite thing is the artifice -- the fake gondolier taking you down a fake canal to the fake St. Mark’s Square in the Venetian. Or the fake steam (dry ice) coming from the fake street grates in the fake Greenwich Village in the New York, New York resort/casino. You get a slice of pizza, chuckle and say, “How about that!”

I’m not much of a gambler, as I just can’t get past the fact that every game is designed to take your money away. But when in Vegas I play blackjack; if you play “basic strategy”, hitting, splitting, and doubling down when you’re supposed to, it has the least bad odds of any game -- a house "edge" of about 0.5%. You can usually sit at the table for a good long time before those relentless statistics catch up to you. And if you’re sitting with friends, laughing and having fun, it’s money well spent.

I’ve read a couple of blackjack books, and you can actually turn the odds in blackjack slightly in your favor through card counting. It doesn’t require prodigious memory (like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man), just concentration, but that makes it like a second job. No thanks.

The first time I saw Dr. Duke Tumatoe’s band was about 20 years ago, when they played at Biddy Mulligan’s in Rogers Park, just a block south of the Evanston/Chicago border. (It’s been shuttered for at least 10 years now, sadly.) My old roommate Mike was a big fan of live music, and they’d played his college town (Dayton) regularly, so he knew what fun they were. Off we went.

They were a very good bar band -- lots of upbeat songs and audience participation, and decent musicianship, as far as I could tell. Duke himself was an old man, bald, with a pot belly and a bushy white beard. He looked like Santa Claus, if Santa played a mean electric guitar, sang old and new rockin’ blues songs, and was a dirty old man. (The album he released in 2001 was titled "It's Christmas (Let's Have Sex)", which I don't think Bing Crosby ever recorded.)

The highlight of the show was when Duke switched over to his wireless electric guitar and strolled through the audience during one song. He then strolled right out the front door and into the middle of Sheridan Road, where he stood and whaled away for a minute or two, with cars passing by on either side, and everyone inside pressed against the windows watching and cheering. Crazy!

We did Thanksgiving in Michigan again this year, and had our usual wonderful time. There's a casino/resort 20 minutes away in Manistee (the Little River Casino), which I'd never cared to visit before. But I found out beforehand that the band playing at the bar that weekend was -- you guessed it -- Dr. Duke Tumatoe and his Power Trio. So we all went on Friday night, leaving the kids behind with Grandma.

When we got there we had a half-hour before the show started, so we split up to explore and gamble a little, according to our own preferences. I went looking for the blackjack tables, naturally. They were surprisingly crowded, and I didn't see any table I felt like joining alone, so I just watched.

The rules of casino advertising dictate that everyone is young, thin, beautiful, happy, and having a ball. I'm not a snob, but my observation of the Little River Casino: eh, not so much. A more typical customer is older, plain, heavy-set, and morose, smoking and joylessly pumping coins into a slot machine. (OK, maybe I am a snob.)

Duke's show started at 9pm, and was as fun as I expected. The solid blues songs, the comedy, the audience call-and-response -- it got more crowded as the night went on, as he seemed to pull people in from the casino floor. Duke himself didn't look any older, which is one virtue, I suppose, of looking like Santa Claus when you're in your forties. By his second set he had a fair number of people on the dance floor, off and on. (At one point, though, the lone dancer was a scraggly biker dude flapping wildly by himself in the middle of the dance floor, a cigarette in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. Go figure.)

We chatted a little with the keyboard player between sets. The band is based out of Indianapolis and plays over 200 gigs a year, almost all driving distance. They tour from Wednesday through Sunday, spend a couple of days at home, and then head back out -- almost all year round. It's a living, I suppose, and they seem to have fun doing it. They'll actually be back in Chicago on December 26th, playing at Kingston Mines in Lincoln Park.

So go see Duke Tumatoe and Co. if you get the chance, if live music's your thing -- I don't think you'll be disappointed. And remember to always split your aces and eights, and double down on 11, unless the dealer's showing an ace.

Pat

Coopers and Fletchers

The second largest law firm in the world is Baker & McKenzie. I'm sure Mr. Baker was quite proud of his accomplishment, especially given that the ancestor whose name he carried was a baker -- you know, a guy who baked things. Way back when a "dusty baker" was probably covered in flour.

The surnames I've always gotten a kick out of are the ones related to a trade or profession. Many end in "er", of course, meaning "the guys who does..." Some end in "ward", as in "the guy responsible for". A "wright" made things, while a "smith" made or refined stuff, especially metal.

Some obvious ones:

• Food and drink: Baker, Brewer, Butcher, Cook, Miller
• Clothing: Tailor (Taylor), Weaver/Webster, Shoemaker, Glover
• Housing and building: Thatcher, Carpenter, Sawyer ("the guy who saws"), Plumber, Bricker/Brickman, Mason, Waller
• Farm and Field: Farmer, Hayward, Gardener, Shepherd, Shearer, Parker (in charge of a game park), Woodward
• Transportation: Wagoner, Carter, and Porter all moved stuff around. They were dependent on the Wheelwright/Wheeler, Wagonwright (now Wainwright) and the Cartwright, any of these sometimes shortened to just Wright.
• Making music: Piper, Harper, Singer
• Gentry and clergy: Lord, Knight, Duke, Abbot, Bishop
• Craftsmen and tradesmen: Turner (lathe operator), Smith (often short for blacksmith), Goldsmith, Coppersmith, Potter, Tanner, Barber, Stringer, Roper
• Boating and seafaring: Keeler (bargeman), Fisher, Boatman, Waterman

The less obvious ones are the best:

• A Cooper was a barrel-maker, and a Hooper made the hoops for the barrels. They were buddies, I'm sure.
• Mr. Fletcher made arrows. His best customers were probably Mr. Archer, Mr. Bowman, and the guy who made the bows, Mr. Bowyer (now Boyer.)
• A Faulkner was in charge of falcons.
• Tucker, Fuller, and Walker were all names of people who cleaned and thickened cloth.
• Barker worked in tanning. Using tree bark in the process, I guess?
• A Dexter dyed cloth.
• Peterman was another name for Fisher.

Interesting, too, that there are feminine versions -- in English these end in "ster" or similar. So Brewster for Brewer, Baxter for Baker, etc. And another name for judge was Deemer, whose feminine form was Dempster.

It was the same in other European countries, of course, so Smith is Schmidt in German and Lefevre in French, while Miller is Molina in Spain and Molnar in Hungary.

Fun, huh? I think very few people who carry a profession or trade surname would want to go back to that line of work, in this day and age. Unless you wanted to make and sell knives instead of playing football. Eh, Mr. Cutler?

Pat