Cordelia Redux

The burden of knowledge my daughter says, is upon the writer and not the reader. Sometimes the burden is described as follows: "As we accumulate more knowledge, more knowledge must be known before new contributors can contribute." Here is it is simply that the reader must know who Cordelia is to appreciate the words.

So I explain...

The youngest and favorite daughter of King Lear is Cordelia, who struggles to find kind words to say about her father. William Shakespeare made a play out of it, which is correctly called a tragedy. Its first known performance was on St. Stephen's Day, December 26th, in 1606.

Cordelia Redux 

My lord and father, 

I am the last to speak, with the least to say 

Sad am I, I cannot heave 

My heart into my mouth, I love your majesty 

I love my father more, according to my bond, 

Not more nor less, I confess

Like any good daughter, I would love and be silent 

Leave me to my duty, I have no need to boast 

That the truth is so untender 

To obey and love and honor 

And nothing can I add

Dear Dad,
Okay, It is sad, but

Every daughter does what she should do

Nothing more nor less need be said

To obey and love and honor is the past

The truth is

I have no time to stay

I need the keys, the car, some cash

I’ve got to dash

Cordelia, a painting by William Frederick Yeames

Hay

Hay at Lake El Dorado Kansas

"Hay."

That's where I should leave it. Then one could interpret the image as a visual cue for a greeting. Or, a comment on the end of summer in Kansas. A mathematician would think of perspective, and a neural scientist the effect of color on the brain.

A poet would enjoy the image for what it is, beautiful.

To See

We tend to see in life what we expect to see, looking only to affirm what we firmly believe to be true. In that tendency we are too often deceived. For, if all our beliefs and opinions hold true, the old man muses, then we cease to learn, to grow in spirit and wisdom.

History

"[T]here is properly no history; only biography." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essay 1, History.

Time, May 20, 2013

Time magazine points out that history is actually an autobiography.

Writer's Block

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."

Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia, could have been the title of this short article, but then only a food scientist would understand.

Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia is a brain freeze, the pain you feel when one takes a big gulp of one's favorite frozen concoction on a summer's day or one chomps down on a Popsicle fresh from the freezer. Boom - there is a massive pain in your forehead. Blood vessels dilate as you hold the icy cold in your mouth, pain receptors release prostaglandins, increasing sensitivity to further pain, and the trigeminal nerve signals the brain to the problem. Stop what you are doing, but you don't.

A brain freeze is not unlike what happens to writers when they can't think of what to say. And the harder you try to think, the worse the block gets. Boom - one gets a headache just thinking about thinking about something to write. Writers call it writer's block.

Hemingway had some good advice on writer's block. Stop what you are doing, relax and let the mind take over. And, this is important, write what is true.

Witches

MACBETH Act I, Scene I

          A desert place.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First Witch

When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch

When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.

Third Witch

That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch

Where the place?

Second Witch

Upon the heath.

Third Witch There to meet with Macbeth.

Macbeth and Banquo Encountering the Three Witches on the Heath,
Musee d'Orsay, by Théodore Chassériau, 1855. The Atheneum.

The old man's son is in college now. He is home for the summer having survived his first year away from home. Asked what he learned, the son replies, "All stories, my English teacher taught, can only be understood in the context of the time in which the story is written." He continues, "The other questions that must be asked are, 'Who is the author writing for?' and 'What is his purpose in writing?'"

Good points, the old man thinks.

Macbeth has always had an attraction for fans of William Shakespeare. Written between 1603 and 1607, the play tells the story of a brave Scottish general, Macbeth, who is told by a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland.

Do these witches have some magical powers that allow them to foretell the future?

In the forty years prior to writing the play, some eight thousand women were burned as witches in Scotland. In 1597, King James VI of Scotland published Daemonologie, blaming witches for love or hate, disease, storms, and the power to kill. In 1603, King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, and, one supposes the question of witches was fresh in the minds of James' new English subjects. Not that Elizabeth I, who preceded James, was innocent of superstition, but she only executed eighty-one women for the crime of witchcraft during her reign. Perhaps she was distracted by weightier matters of state than the hysterics of accusers and the rantings of old women who were tortured into confessing crimes they did not commit.

William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth no doubt to curry favor with the new king. The conscience of Shakespeare's play turns out to be Banquo, a relative of the future king. Banquo is present with Macbeth at the meeting with the three witches. He is promised by the witches, not the crown, but the future crown. This promise surely put Macbeth to wonder about Banquo's loyalty, and thus, Macbeth, after murdering the king, subsequently murders Banquo. Banquo continues on in the play as a ghost and as father of Fleance and ancestor to the future King James I.

After the performance of the play, Shakespeare's troupe became The King's Company and Shakespeare and company were on their way to fame and fortune.

Shakespeare was an unqualified success because he wrote in an age of superstition. The mass of spectators who paid a penny to stand and watch a performance, which included witches and ghosts, regicide and suicide, battles, and blood and gore, got their money's worth. And those who paid three-penny's worth for a seat, were richly treated to more thoughtful prose.

Carpe Diem

They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

John Keating from Dead Poet's Society

The dogs, Sammy and Tobie, and I spent a cloudy spring Sunday driving through the southern part of Greenwood County. Sammy is a German Shepherd, Tobie is part Australian Shepherd and part Mountain Cur. Me, I guess I am a mix breed too, but then aren't we all? My wife and kids just call me a cranky old man. But I am not all that old and I don't think of myself as cranky.

The dogs like car trips because they run free through the fields of grass and flowers and splash in the streams. Being city dogs, they don't always know what to make of the cattle and horse. I like the solitude of history.

The dogs and I live in Wichita, Kansas. We do our best to get along with the wife and kids, but it isn't always easy.

Wichita is the largest city in the state of Kansas. Founded in 1870, it has grown from cow town on the Chisholm Trail to a leading manufacturer of airplanes. It is also home to Koch Industries, a privately held by Charles and David Koch and based in Wichita. Koch has subsidiaries in manufacturing, trading and investments. Charles and David Koch - one lives in Wichita, the other in New York - own Invista, Georgia-Pacific, Flint Hills Resources, Koch Pipeline, Koch Fertilizer, Koch Minerals and Matador Cattle Company, to name a few.

Wichita is also home to the Wichita State University, whose men's basketball team came within a hair's breath of beating Louisville in the 2013 NCAA basketball tournament in Atlanta. But enough bragging about one's home town.

If you leave Wichita and head east on Highway 400, the trip takes you into Butler County, past Augusta, Leon, and Beaumont. The road gently rises through the Flint Hills and off to the right and left, where the highway has cut through the hills, you can often see the layered chert and limestone that lies below the soil. Beaumont is at the summit of the Flint Hills. In fact, its hotel was once called the Summit, before taking on the name Beaumont.

detail Greenwood County, Kansas Atlas 1903

Greenwood County begins at the eastern boundary of Beaumont. From there the highway descends down into the Otter Creek valley. The old Frisco railroad which used to parallel the highway is now gone and its tracks removed. Today, the population of Greenwood barely tops 6,600. And that wouldn't even fill Charles Koch Arena where the Shocker basketball team plays. At its peak, when the Frisco ran, the population stood at 16,495. It has been down hill since then.

Just inside Greenwood County, down the hill from Beaumont near one of the many rivulets that form Otter Creek, sits an abandoned limestone one room schoolhouse, number 83.  Only two sides of the school remain. The doorway on the north has fallen down as has the roof and west wall. This must count as the smallest school in Kansas. I imagine that two children standing shoulder to shoulder with arms stretched out could touch from side to side. From the Kansas Atlas for 1922, I discovered that the school sat on land belonging to James and Anna Edgar. But that is all I have discovered. The story of the school and its students is lost to history.

Kansas' smallest schoolhouse, no, 83, Greenwood County

Sammy and Tobie enjoyed the break from the monotony of the car. Nearby a spring flowed fresh water from the hills and a creek flowed clear water. As with all spring water, it was cool and clear.

Railroads change names frequently. And the Frisco railroad has had many names over its lifetime. During its time in eastern Kansas, the Frisco was officially known as the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad. The St. Louis part was real but San Franciso was a dream, for the tracks never got to the west coast. In Kansas, before the climb to Beaumont and on to Wichita, the Frisco had stops in Piedmont and Severy. Piedmont, as the name suggests, is at the foot of the Flint Hills, before the climb to the summit at Beaumont. Severy is another 10 miles east. Beaumont, Piedmont, and Severy were all railroad towns, meaning they thrived because of the railroad and the business it brought.

Piedmont 1902, Kansas Atlas, Greenwood County 1902

If you have the time, visit Piedmont. By Mapquest.

Highway 400 does not announce the turn off to Piedmont in large letters. The city sits about a mile off the new highway, tucked back in the trees, lost in time. Piedmont, once a booming town of 300, now is down to less than 100. Once it had a hotel, a grocery store, and other businesses. Now it has none.

Piedmont High School, 1922

Piedmont certainly has, or perhaps "had" is a better word, the largest high school for a city its size. This abandoned three story structure could have housed the entire city and then had room for more. The roof is gone, so are the students.

Empty schools get me to think, and my thoughts eventually took me to the 1989 movie Dead Poet's Society where English teacher John Keating (played by Robin Williams) inspires his students to a love of poetry and to seize the day.In one memorable scene he takes his students out into the hallway and to the trophy cases. There are all the golden trophies attesting to the physical prowess of the high schools sports teams. There are all the team photos. And when the students lean in to peer at the images and faces of the students gone by, is when the teacher whispers "Carpe diem, sieze the day boys."

Kansas Atlas 1922, Greenwood County

I didn't have the old yearbook for Piedmont High School. I did find online the Kansas Atlas 1922 for Greenwood County. And in the back of the book are a few reminders of the people who once proudly called Greenwood County home.

John Howland, family

Cedar Lawn Stock Farm, Severy, Kansas

You have to take your time, you have to look closely, but they are saying the same thing as John Keating, "Carpe diem, sieze the day."

Sammy Tobie and I enjoyed Piedmont. What is not to like about a city where the dogs can run loose, where a dad can take his son four wheeling down the main street, where everyone knows your name, and strangers are welcome, if you are friendly in return.

Down the road to Severy, it is not a far piece to drive. Back in the day, buy horse and buggy, it would take an hour. When cars started arriving in Greenwood County around 1910, the trip was shortened to half the time, but only if the car didn't get stuck in the mud on the dirt roads.

Severy too has been bypassed by Highway 400. To get there one has to leave the fast lane and take the old county road one mile. Severy is larger than Piedmont. It has a grocery store, a cafe, even a burger place, and several businesses which keep the town thriving despite the loss of the railroad.

As I turned my car around to go home, one other thought struck me - that is that even as I watch these once thriving towns grow smaller, it is a testament to the passing of time. "To everything there is a season," as Ecclesiastics says. The rugged settlers who came to Greenwood County in the 1870's themselves replaced an older group of people. Though it is not marked, Highway 400 marks the route of the Osage Indian Trail. And along this same highway four times a year the Osage Indians would travel to the hunting grounds of the buffalo along the Walnut and Arkansas river valleys.