Hanging Around in the Past

I realize that I have been spending most of my time in the past.

Not in any morbid, longing for things gone by, way.

It's just how things have worked out.

Other than being from the past, this photo doesn't have

anything to do with the rest of the blog. I just like it!

This is my aunt and uncle, Leonard and Bess Sauble, at

Mother's house in July 1991. Don't know how I caught

them in a big laugh, but it is a wonderfully happy picture.

For example:

I am still working on my great photo project. Although I'm about up to 1949 (many undated photos) and Mother's old photo book I'm re-doing ends with a few scattered pictures from the early '50s, I have many more photos that need rebooked.

I am more than halfway through the Irish History for Dummies book I've been working on for a few months. I just read two or three pages a day. It is a pretty depressing saga of constant fighting--first Irish clans against each other for dominance and territory, then, struggles with the English. The English takeover of Ireland took several hundred years of biting off more and more pieces of land, giving it to English or Scots settlers, and trying to make the native Irish quit being so Irish and become good Englishmen. There are rebellions after rebellions, but the English soldiers are better equipped, better trained, and have greater numbers. It always ends with a lot of dead Irish and more land grabbed by the English. History is usually told in the recounting of power struggles. Not much is heard of the effects all this has on the lives, suffering, and deaths of the ordinary folk.

I am also reading a book titled Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts. It is really interesting, being the stories of women in the early days of our country, beginning during the John Adams presidency. People communicated through long letters and saved those precious letters. There were some amazing women, who had great influence, both politically and in social work, in a time when no women could vote and married women could hold no property on their own. When a woman married every thing she owned, right down to the clothes on her back, became her husband's property. Most of these women bore many children and often saw half of them die before they reached adulthood. Still they soldiered on. I would recommend this book to anyone. I'm learning a lot and it is Interesting!

And, then, of course, in our Tuesday Bible Study we are in the books of the Old Testament. That is really ancient history.

One thing that always strikes me in any history I read is that, no matter when it is, human nature doesn't change. Fashions change, governments change, equipment and technology change, but human nature is the same.

I do come up for air in the present. And today I hope to find some great flowers that will soon be blooming in my deck pots!

Undefeated by the Romans

A few months ago I posted a blog that mentioned I was reading The Romans for Dummies book (here). It has taken a long time, but I have finally finished it.

Sometimes I start a book that I think will be really interesting, but bog down partway through. I hate to be defeated by a book! So I often keep plugging on, trying to get it done. If desperate, I'll start skipping and scanning, just to get the gist of it without suffering through every word.

Occasionally, I'll find a book so boring that I decide it really has no worth for me and it is silly to spend any more time on it.

There have been a few times I have found a book so disgusting I have thrown it in the trash. I don't want to pass it on and pollute other minds!

But the Romans book seemed worthwhile to read. I've long been interested in the times of the Roman empire. There are a lot of fascinating characters, events, and accomplishments that took place under the Romans. Their influence on subsequent history is enormous.

So why did it take me so many months to finish this book?

I'm sorry to have to say it, but I was mostly just bored, bored, bored by it. But I wanted the information. So I read it a bit at a time over many weeks. The problem, it seems to me, is that the author tried to cover around 2,000 years of history in slightly less than 500 pages. Given that task, there wasn't space to spend developing the really interesting stories about people and events. Instead, you get bits and pieces in very condensed form. There are lots of names and dates I'm never going to remember. Neither will I really remember how the political structure of Rome was organized in different stages of the development from a village to an empire. And there were battles galore, but I'll only remember the general tenor of those times, rather than what general met what tribe in what battle in which country.

I come away from this book with a general overview of the entire span of the Roman Empire, from before it was an empire until its ultimate collapse. There were lots of villains and a few heroes, but only some of their names will stick with me.

Rather than being a fun and interesting read, this was more like a textbook (and why can't they be written in a lively and interesting manner?) that needed to be studied, with note-taking and exams to make the information stick.

I'm sorry I can't give a more positive review of the book. Someone else might come away from it with an entirely different view.

In the meantime, if you like history, I would highly recommend a slim volume by Will Cuppy titled The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody. It is copyrighted 1950, but I recently found a used copy through Amazon to replace my old paperback that I have worn out. I have laughed so hard reading this book (many times over the years) that my eyes teared up and I could no longer see the page. Jerry used to look at me like I was nuts when I was reading Cuppy's take on various historical personages. His history is generally accurate, but his viewpoint and the way he tells it are hilarious.

On Reading History

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” --Edmund Burke (1700s)

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."--George Santayana (1800s)

Monsters live among us. Yes, I am thinking about the bombings in Boston yesterday. It was a scene that would be very familiar to those living in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and so many other places around our battered world.

I've always enjoyed history. It is the story of people. I have actually learned a lot of history through reading historical novels. I remember several years ago that I read a novel that featured some incidents involving France's "Sun King" and life at the great palace of Versailles. I don't remember much else about that novel, but it piqued my curiosity about Louis XIV and I did a lot of reading in the encyclopedia about him, his times, life at Versailles, and life of the common French people of the times.

While most of my reading is recreational or escapist type reading--the love of a good story--I also include some nonfiction, whether biographies, Bible, or more generalized history. Over the past year or two I have been reading, a bit at a time, books in the "for Dummies" series of histories. I've finished the Egyptians and the Greeks, and am working on the Romans. I still have the Irish and the Europeans to go. Although I won't remember all the details and people that fill these books, what I will remember is the general overview of their times.

A few things always stand out for me when I read history, whether from secular or Biblical writings.

1)  Human nature doesn't change. In every society in every time in every part of the globe there are basics that always show up.

2)  The "common" people of every society are the ones who keep the social order functioning. They are the ones who do the necessary work, raise the children, care for the elderly and the ill. Life could not go on without the everyday activities of the unsung ordinary folk.

3)  The death, destruction, and horrors of war are created by the privileged elite who seek ever more wealth, territory, and power. The more people they manage to get killed through their greed for those things, the more they are apt to be awarded the title "the Great." They are the ones the historians write about, but their power and wealth are gained on the efforts and the sacrifices of thousands of other people who are pulled into their orbits and their armies, or who are killed for the acquisition of their lands, wealth, or power.

Knowing something about history is truly important. It can also be discouraging.

My heroes are the ordinary folk who work so hard to keep life functioning and without whom we would lack all the things that make life possible and society workable.

Preliminary Book Review

This weekend I started reading a book by an author who is new to me. It is the second in the Hangman's Daughter series, but the first that I have read. The jury is still out in my mind as to my final opinion of the book, as I am only part of the way through it. But the part I have read is interesting; and it has centered my attention on what life was like in Europe in the 1600s.

The author is a descendant of the Hangman and the members of the Hangman's family really existed. However, other than their names and the fact that the job of Hangman was carried through many generations of his family, the author has invented the characteristics and life events of these people.

Human natures and characteristics don't change through the centuries. But knowledge, beliefs, and equipment have changed radically since the 1600s. It is always a surprise to realize the people really did believe that diseases and deaths were often caused by a witch. And a woman could be labeled a witch for almost any reason. And such a label could be deadly. Superstitions that seem really silly to us were both believed and taken very seriously by both the populace and the church. Very few people were literate, and the church and state thought that was a good thing, as it helped keep people in their proper places. Every society needed an executioner, but shunned the one they paid to do the dreadful job. Even the church refused baptism and burial in sacred ground to the hangman and anyone in his family. Living conditions were brutal for the masses, and not all that comfortable for those better off.

I contrast these conditions from 400 years ago with a court decision handed down by a French judge last week. That judge ruled that, despite the fact that French workers get four to six weeks vacation every year, if a person gets sick during his/her vacation, the employer must give additional vacation days for the days the vacationer was ill!

Anyway, I will finish reading this book, which has a mystery including a poisoned priest, the tomb of a Knight Templar, a missing treasure, and romantic problems for the Hangman's daughter! So far it is holding my interest.

History Just Keeps Repeating Itself

I've been a Bible reader since I was a child. Each time I read it I find new insights. What I see and understand is different at different ages and different life circumstances. I also read different translations. A little difference in choice of wording by translators can catch my attention and shed light to my understanding.

Reading the Bible as an adult focuses my thoughts on what I read in a way that is different from what I focused on as a child (the stories and adventures!).

One thing that is inescapable to me now is how human nature has not changed a bit in the last several thousand years (David lived 3,000 years ago; read his psalms and you will find his emotions very familiar).

Even the historical accounts have a very familiar ring to them. The same nations, the same tribal and ethnic backgrounds, are behaving in the same ways seen in the Bible. The same folks are still fighting with each other over the same territories. Thousands of years and they still have not learned to live in peace and stop the killing!

The prophets do, many, many times, give a message from the Lord that there will come a time of absolute peace and safety. Lord, we are so looking forward to that time!