Solstice 2020: Ebenezer II

"Here I raise my Ebenezer

Here there by Thy great help I've come
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home."

Stone of Remembrance.

My Grandson and I found it up on the side of the mountain when we were gathering smaller stones together for my latest rock garden. I've been trying to convince someone in the family quarantine circle to help me go get it. I had rolled it over by myself, but I knew I wouldn't get it into the car alone. Oh, on the day of discovery we were too dog-tired after a hike to lift it in.

My wife did not want to go fearing that I would drop it on her foot. She finally coordinated my eldest, her son, and our A-5 (fifth child) to go up there after the Juneteenth March in Centerville for racial equality and justice. (Probably deserves another blog post.) They seemed okay and the four of us lifted in in and out of the Rav-4 without any feet being smashed.

If only I had taken a photo of it in its natural habitat!

Already prepared my remembrances to lie underneath the stone.

Surprised by Peace

The Library of America and I have a long-term relationship. In its early days, I had a subscription and was collecting and reading great American authors. The editions are beautiful and well edited by experts in literature or history. Thin pages carry a lot in one volume.

In later years, I've purchased an book or two now and then. Recently I ordered what looked like an interesting anthology:

I haven't gotten to it yet. It was still in its plastic wrap when I picked it up to move it somewhere and noticed an interesting name on the back list of authors, Joseph Smith, Jr.!!!

Welsh Pioneers to Zion

Sometimes the right book just drops in your lap at the right time. Well, I had to order it and going directly to the publisher rather than wait for Amazon got it too me a little quicker.

Welsh Saints on the Mormon Trail: The Story of the Welsh Emigration to Salt Lake City During the Nineteenth Century, by Wil Aaron, published in Wales by Y Lolfa is another book I don't have to write because it is better than what I could do. It has already been an aid to me in my current position as a part-time service missionary in the Church History Library (CHL) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Church).  Whew! The author is not a member of the Church and is not compelled to the full typing requirements of the name. (I recently was making deliveries in the library and a worker unknown to me commented on a book I had with "Mormonism" in the title. She asked rhetorically and matter-of-factly, "We're never going to get rid of that name, are we?")

It is a highly entertaining read as the writer is a producer of music and television programs in Wales. He has the academic credentials as a professor of Music at Bangor University where I have delved into the archives on family history quests. And it's one of the best general histories of the Pioneer Trail and the settlement of the American West as its chapters are divided by years from 1847 to 1868, the range of the Mormon Pioneer Trail. Told by an outsider to the Church and the the American Experience, it presents a fresh vista of the story in a very accessible format.

Red-lining Systemic Racism - My Cities

One of my Welsh Professors, whom I have also hired as my estate-planning attorney, shared something on Facebook that I thought would be good to memorialize in a blog post. The links would be easier to find through my search box down on the lower right.

He linked some information and fascinating if disturbing resources on the practice of "red-lining" that came out of the New Deal in the 1930s. The Home Owners' Loan Corporation or HOLC was established to readjust home mortgages that were in default or needed refinancing. Major cities were mapped to indicate areas where loans were most at risk. The neighborhoods marked in red were the most risky based on economic conditions of the residents at the time and also expressly and explicitly by race and ethnicity. While the HOLC was abolished in 1947, these maps were used by banks and others interested in economic investment well into recent times. They helped to establish de facto racial segregation in all major cities not just the South where legal segregation flourished until the 1960s. The effects of red-lining are still with us today. You can read more here and here.

And, you can find the maps at the University of Richmond's "American Panorama: An Atlas of United States History."

My paternal line came to America in 1886. The first couple of generations lived in the lowest rated red-line districts of Ogden, Utah, classifications D-8 and D-9 for "Hazardous" with regard to investment.

Water-fall 3: Never Too Much of a Good Thing

We did it again!

It was a slightly different hike yesterday as we went up the North Trail. That's how I first got to know the canyon and trying it again I remembered why I switched to the south side.

The first half mile is a killer up the exposed hills. It has it's advantages of great views and avoids the rock scramble of the canyon mouth on the South. And if you do try it, avoid when the summer sun is shining! We were fortunately up there before the sun cleared the Wasatch.

Just for the Record on the Turning Point

There hasn't been a lot of political postings from me recently because I've already said what I can about my beliefs and the horrifying failures of this nation to put and keep a racist, TV-star con-man in charge of our country.

Last night was a turning point in that military leaders have spoken out against the brazen and ham-handed Constitutional violation of the right of peaceful assembly just so the con-man could have a photo-op holding up a bible in front of a church.

Nothing else has done it, but this has to be it. We can't wait five more months to election day with pandemic raging and the possibility of a race war followed by a harsh, government crack-down. I'm calling it that trump is done. He may or may not resign. He may flail around in his bunker. But without the backing of the U.S. Military, he is neutered as he should have been many years ago just for for his sexual offenses.

Here is some of what I posted yesterday on Facebook and Twitter. Just for the record.

In response to this article from the Washington Post:

"Shame, shame on the U.S. Park Police! You know better! I know you had good legal advice in the past and you could get it now if you listened to the right advisers--those farthest away from trump and Secretary "Coal & Petroleum" Bernhardt!"

And here's the Post on Sec of Defense, Mike Esper, criticizing excessive force.

In response to the Post article on former Sec of Defense, Jim Mattis, I said:

"We need more of this. It's still not too late."

And then,

"The Joints Chiefs of Staff have laid down a marker that they uphold the Constitution and will not interfere with peaceful protest! Stay safe out there, People! and video the perps of violence from the left and especially from the right!"

The Waterfall, sorta Part 2

Vaughan's poem of yesterday had been weighing heavenly on me as I realized that I had to get back up with the Waterfall. My eldest grandson is "quaranteening" with us as he went on our trip to help his uncle move to Kansas for grad school. It might be a little because his parents have found out that he is a "teen." It was good to take him up there to share a place I love and give him some exercise.

It's been a mostly sedentary life for me recently. I was swimming laps before the corona hit. I have my gardening, but aerobic exercise hasn't been high on my list. My feet having given out to peripheral neuropathy that neither my foot doctor nor my neurologist know what to do with. We're testing different dosages of gapapentin to see what works best without making me stone-cold sleepy.

We left about 8 a.m. still early enough before the heat of the day. We drove up the first mile and parked. In my running days, I would think nothing of doing the whole thing right out my door, seven miles round trip. The first mile is solid elevation gain. This time we parked by the trail head.

The sun rises late over the Wasatch. And day-long shadows lie in the canyons. Right at the start is an inviting passage into the greenery. The first steps follow an old irrigation pipe on a level grade except where a landslide has dug into the mountainside. It then climbs we see what a lot of locals stop at for the waterfall in Centerville Canyon. It's more of a cascade to me.

The Water-Fall (Deuel Creek, Centerville Canyon, Davis County, Utah with my Grandson)

The Water-fall

BY HENRY VAUGHAN (1621-1695)

With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth

Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth

Here flowing fall,

And chide, and call,

As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d

Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid;

The common pass

Where, clear as glass,

All must descend

Not to an end,

But quicken’d by this deep and rocky grave,

Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.