Memories of Christmas, 2020 version

 

CHRISTMAS 2020

                              Christmas at Mocarski’s in Tiverton RI 2012: L to R, Sam Coulbourn, Isaac, Kit and Sam                                              Mocarski, Elizabeth, Marty and Charlie Coulbourn.

Dear Family and Friends,

            What a crazy year we’ve been through… but there’s reason to see a HEALTHY and HAPPY 2021!

            This season I’m running on the memories of loads of Christmases:

            When my Dad had a tree so tall, he cut a hole in the ceiling, so you had to climb up to the attic to see the angel on top…

            When Marty and I celebrated our first Christmas and we found out that if you are going to cook a frozen goose, you need to thaw it for a few days.   

            When John, Mark and Susan, all around the tree, had to shield their eyes from a bright light as I shot a movie of them.

             We were steaming submerged in the Mediterranean near the island of Pantelleria, off Sicily on Christmas Day (1963) and it was reassuring to look through the periscope and see people airing their blankets and getting on with life, while we headed eastward to cover our targets on a ballistic missile submarine. Back in America people were still disturbed about the assassination of President Kennedy.

            We were living in Iran when my Dad sent Mark (age 10) a BB-gun.  Mark and his wiser, older (12) brother John set up on our roof and began shooting out the New Year’s decoration lights on the A.S.S. Dry Cleaners, next door. Little did we know what would take place there nine years later!  Muslim Iranians were fascinated by our Christmas celebration. We had to drive down to the British Embassy in southern Tehran to find a Christmas tree. That was a much different time in Iran (1970).

Next generation of BB-gunners: Charlie, Sam and Isaac (2005)

                       Marty and the kids sent me gifts that tumbled down a cargo net from a helicopter, onto the deck of my destroyer, in the Tonkin Gulf. Later that day we watched waves of B-52 bombers flying from Guam to bomb Hanoi in President Nixon’s Christmas bombing (1972).

            In three Christmases in Naples, Italy we enjoyed visiting the ancient Spacca Napoli and seeing the elaborate presepe manger scenes for sale. In our first Christmas there our cousins Nancy and Ron Pomerleau and daughters Anne and Susan, joined us, and we took the train to Florence to experience Natale there.

Presepi in Naples’ Spacca Napoli

            We spent two lively Christmases in Moscow.  Our Ukrainian maid’s husband brought us a skinny little communist tree, but with our decorations it was like holidays back home.  A Chinese general paid a call on me and brought a box of ornate feathered tree decorations from China and took delight in putting several on our tree. We drove north of Moscow to the ancient city of Zagorsk and attended a church service with flocks of priests on a frigid, snowy day. This was in the days when religion was officially frowned upon.

                                                                        

                                                                                      Priests at Zagorsk

             The Pomerleaus, our cousins from New Hampshire, joined us for our first Christmas in Moscow. Ron and I spent one glorious evening sitting at the kitchen table, eating caviar, smoked herring and garlic, drinking vodka and telling stories—our idea of Russian men’s evening.

 

                             Pomerleaus, Coulbourns and Lajoies pose for photo in Red Square. (1981)                                             L to R: Ron and Nancy Pomeleau, John Coulbourn, Susan Pomerleau, Marty, Mark and Susan  Coulbourn, Renee Lajoie, Sam, JoAnn and Roland Lajoie, and dog.

            Marty organized a gathering of all the kids of military attachés from all the embassies in Moscow home for the holidays. Our apartment was flowing with young people from Burma, Sweden, West Germany, Turkey, Finland, Great Britain, Japan, India, Thailand, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Norway and beyond.

            Then the Swedish Naval Attaché invited us to an elaborate Smörgåsbord in their home, which was one of the only wooden frame houses in downtown Moscow—one built by the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, next to the Kremlin. The Russians learned a lot about blowing things up from Nobel. What we learned from that evening is that aquavit is almost as powerful as dynamite.

                   After two years in Russia, we spent three years in Japan, and while most Japanese weren’t Christians, they jumped eagerly into the secular Santa Claus part of Kurismasu.

Marty poses beside a Japanese (artificial) Kurismasu tree (1986).

             Then I retired from the Navy and we moved to Rockport and Marty presided over many celebrations there.  Marty loved Christmas. It was always a flurry of digging out the huge box of decorations, and writing cards, and wrapping packages and cooking and enjoying family and friends.  We spent many wonderful Christmases at the homes of Sue and Ted Mocarski in Bristol, then Providence, then Tiverton, RI and with John and Laura in Topsfield, MA.

            And always, Marty would bake an assortment of spinach and lobster quiche Lorraine, a dish of scalloped oysters and her beloved molded fruit salad. And she would always preside over the making of the gravy.

                                                              "Enough with the photos!"

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sam

 P.S. Sorry I couldn't get this system to left-align in places!

s.

Thanksgiving Memories, 2020

 

Thanksgiving Memories, 2020

Thanksgiving in Rockport, 2006

L to R: Marty, Charlie Coulbourn, Sam Coulbourn Flores, Laura Coulbourn, Mac McCarthy, Mark Coulbourn and Jennifer McCarthy

 

            Celebrating Thanksgiving in a pandemic is certainly different.

            In my 86 years, I’ve seen some interesting, and delightful Thanksgivings. 

            As a kid, my brother Dick and I usually skipped everything but the rolls with butter. And the pie. Eventually I was forced to eat my Grandmother’s cushaw, and later I grew to enjoy this southern favorite.

            Then there were four Thanksgivings in the huge mess hall at the Naval Academy, with plenty of turkey and stuffing and vegetables for 3600 hungry midshipmen.

            The first Thanksgiving cooked by Martha Jane, my new bride, was in our apartment on East Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach CA. It was delightful and delicious. In preparation for the day I had rented a television so we could watch the Macy’s parade and the football games, which came on three hours too soon. That was in 1957, when television was black and white and grainy.

            There were too many Thanksgivings when Marty cooked dinner and served it to our kids, John, Mark and Susan, while I ate with other officers in the wardroom half a world away, on a destroyer in the South China Sea, or a destroyer or ammunition ship in the Mediterranean, or steaming submerged at 300 feet through the Straits of Gibraltar in a ballistic missile submarine.  Also, there was the Thanksgiving as we steamed into the Tonkin Gulf to begin naval gunfire missions in the closing days of the Viet Nam war.

            The Navy was always very generous in providing the turkey and trimmings to ships at sea. I remember when we were steaming alongside the supply ship and tons of food were being shipped over in nets between ships. A few sailors decided to divert some of the food below decks for their private use. One threw a large frozen turkey down a hold and knocked another sailor out. Frozen turkeys can be lethal!

            In Iran Martha Jane prepared marvelous dinners with help from Mehrab, our Persian houseboy. Our guests, British and Iranian, as well as American, enjoyed this American tradition, with bits of Persian style. (E.g.: Mehrab put all the dishes and plates of food on the kitchen floor to serve them.) We had dinners for American and Italian guests and family at our home in Naples, Italy, and Maria, our maid, added Italian flavor. One guest, Father Quentin, an American priest living in Rome, gave the blessing, and then surprised us all with his phenomenal appetite, as if he had not seen food before!

            Lyudmila, our Ukrainian maid in Moscow put a few unique Russian twists in two fine Thanksgiving dinners in the USSR.  We had British, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, and German guests to help us celebrate the original Pilgrims’ feast in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of course, we began by serving each guest a tiny glass of iced vodka. We brought this custom back to America.

            Our three Thanksgivings in Japan always had Japanese and American guests, and Kimiko-san helped Marty with bits of Japanese flavor. Guests at one dinner in Sasebo, Japan drank a little too much sake.

Nanny with granddaughters Kit and Lisby in Rockport, 2007.

            After ten years living in other countries, it was great to have Thanksgiving back in Washington, DC with family and friends. Then we moved to Rockport, MA and Marty served more elegant dinners, but then our daughter Susan and daughter-in-law Laura took over and served the meals, and Martha Jane brought the molded salad and presided with Sam, our oldest grandson, in making the gravy.

Thanksgiving at Susan’s in Providence

Visiting by Skype with Kit Mocarski, spending one year of her college in France, 2009. (L to R: Laura, Charlie, Elizabeth and Marty Coulbourn, and Susan Mocarski.)

Marty and Sam make the gravy, Tiverton, RI, 2017

I’m thankful….that we have just weathered and apparently overcome another challenge to our republic.  God knows, 11 states withdrew from the Union because they didn’t like the assault on their way of life.  But they returned.

            A man rose in Germany who sought to take over the whole world with Naziism, and other men in Japan and Italy joined with a dream of a world ruled by fascism.

            When they were defeated, another group of men arose. They had been working since the middle of the 19^th century to create Communism, and with Hitler defeated, this became the threat to take over the world… first eastern Europe, then Asia, with eyes set upon the United States of America as the prize.  Then the USSR imploded, and communism began to wither away.

            And then a strange thing happened to America.  A billionaire celebrity from New York who had been trying to get the world’s attention actually found the right buttons to push to attract the attention of millions of Americans and got elected President.  Those who had been aware of this man’s ragged, miserable history of misogyny, self-dealing, money-grubbing dishonesty knew this was a mistake, but still, here he was, Leader of the Free World. Here he was, insulting our historic allies, cooing cozily in the proximity of Vladimir Putin and rejecting international agreements and wiping out environmental regulations. 

            And then came the Covid 19 pandemic.  This fast-talking con-man from Queens had no idea how to lead. His self-centeredness and self-delusion kept him from addressing the nation as a leader would and gathering the best and the brightest to mount an attack on this scourge. His every urge was to dodge this challenge and hope that it would mysteriously “go away’.  This challenge was too much for a man who was false to the core, and it brought him down.

            Still, more Americans than ever before voted to give this man four more years to wreck our republic, to make possible the dreams of Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Putin. 

            Fortunately, even more—nearly six million more—voted to restore America to its democratic republic.

            And that is worth our thanks this Thanksgiving!  God Bless America!

  

Sam Coulbourn

Rockport, MA

Gloucester and the Sea

 

History Book Club

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Gloucester and

The Sea

Gloucester Dorymen

Wednesday, November 25, 2020. Gloucester and the Sea.  euser]

Gloucester has throughout four centuries cast its lot with the North Atlantic, remaining a maritime port for better or worse. The maritime culture of Cape Ann is the mix of a noble maritime heritage; ubiquitous sea influences that reach as far as the quarries behind Rockport and into the haunted tracks of Dogtown Common; seductive but capricious natural splendors; and untidy independence that repels some but converts other visitors into lifetime devotees. Read any book about the maritime history of Gloucester and Cape Ann. [Suggested by Richard Verrengia] 

 

Joseph E. Garland, Lone Voyager: The Extraordinary Adventures of Howard Blackburn, Hero Fisherman of Gloucester, New York: Simon & Schuster; Touchstone Edition 2000; Paper, 330 pp.

            Joe Garland (1922-2011) Was born in Boston. He was attending Harvard when World War II broke out and he enlisted and served in Europe with the 45^th Infantry Division.  After the war he became a newspaper writer, working at the Minneapolis Tribune, Boston Herald, and the Providence Journal.  In the 1950s he made his home in Gloucester, following three generations who lived here. Then he became a leading voice in the city, writing columns in the Gloucester Daily Times, sailing, building sailboats and writing 25 books. He published Lone Voyager in 1963.

            If you live on Cape Ann, you have practically rubbed elbows with Howard Blackburn. You’ve probably had a bowl of Italian fish soup and a beer at Halibut Point, a legendary pub that has closed during this year; and you’ve seen the Blackburn Building, at the foot of Main Street.

            Joe Garland tells the story of Blackburn in Lone Voyager. Blackburn was born in Port Medway a little fishing village on the south coast of Nova Scotia February 19, 1859. He quit school when he was ten, and took all kinds of jobs, including fishing. He eventually made his way down to Gloucester, MA. 

            In January 1883 Grace L. Fears, a fishing schooner, was gathering a crew for a trip up to the Burgeo Bank, off Newfoundland. Blackburn by then was a strong, solid young man who knew his way aboard fishing ships. Fears carried a load of dories and put two fishermen into each 18-foot dory and lowered it over the side to string out nets to catch fish, mostly halibut. 

            Blackburn and Tom Welch manned one dory and rowed away from Fears to begin putting out lines with hooks and lines.  As you might guess, the weather on Burgeo Bank in January might be a bit unpleasant, and the wind came up, and the temperature went down. One bad thing after another happened to the two fishermen, and they became separated from the Fears.

            Blackburn and Welch fought the tremendous waves, bailing out the dory furiously. They lost their gloves; the cold was lethal. Eventually Welch passed out and froze to death and Blackburn rowed on, trying to reach land. His hands had frozen, and still her rowed. After three days he finally made landfall, with the frozen corpse still in the boat. He made his way to this fisherman’s house.

            The tiny village where he landed was having their own problems, cut off from a food supply and having hard times. However, the household who took him in nursed him, even using ancient remedies to peel away the frozen, dead flesh from his hands and healing what was left. When summer came, Blackburn, with stumps for hands, made his way back to Gloucester, and to a hero’s welcome, since the story of his remarkable escape from death had preceded him.

            That should be enough adventure for a lifetime, yes?

            Well, Blackburn opened up a saloon in Gloucester, right down among all the fishermen, and the coins came rolling in. He started to be a philanthropist, helping out needy fishermen’s families. New was coming in about fields of gold in the Klondike, and Blackburn organized a group of friends who each provided shares to mount an expedition to Alaska.  Blackburn bought Hattie L. Phillips, a schooner, and fitted her out to sail around Cape Horn to San Francisco. He also built a shallow-draft steamer that the group would use to steam up into the rivers of Alaska and hired a team of carpenters and mechanics to put the vessel together once they reached San Francisco.

            So here we had Howard Blackburn, the captain with no fingers, just stubs for hands, taking this team of prospective gold diggers around the Horn to the Pacific.

            They finally made it to San Francisco, but shortly afterward, when they were arguing how to make it northward to Alaska, Blackburn discovered that he really didn’t like commanding a ship with people in her.  He left the group and caught a train back to Gloucester.

            That should be enough adventure for a lifetime, yes?

            Blackburn then went back to running his saloon, but he began cooking up his next trip. He bought a 30-foot sloop, Great Western, and fitted her out for a transatlantic voyage.  Alone. By now the press called him The Fingerless Navigator.  The whole city of Gloucester came out to see him sail for Gloucester, England.

            In Gloucester after 62 days alone at sea, he was celebrated again, and then sailed to London. It was 1899.

            That should be enough adventure for a lifetime, yes?

            If you were tracking Blackburn at this point, you might wonder what would be next.  Next came another lonely cruise, this time a race sponsored by Eastern Point yacht club, to Funchal, Portugal, sailing a new yacht, built for him—Great Republic. He made this trip in 39 days.

            After this came an inland voyage, in 1902. Blackburn sailed Great Republic up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal and to Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, down six miles of a new channel intended especially for dumping all of Chicago’s sewage into the Illinois river. Not pleasant sailing!  After that into the Mississippi, whose banks were shedding cornfields and tall trees as the river relocated its path. Then down to New Orleans, then out along the Gulf Coast to Florida, where he sold his yacht and picked up another boat and sailed back to Gloucester, in 1903.

            Blackburn died back in Gloucester on November 4, 1932, age 73.

 

  

-end-

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2020-2021

There will be no meeting in December

2021

Wednesday, January 27, 2021. The Empire of “United” Rome. Over the years and then the centuries, much of Rome's population came from outside Italy -- this even included some of the later emperors, such as Hadrian, who was Spanish, and writers like Columella, Seneca, and Martial, also Spanish-born. Celts, Arabs, Jews, and Greeks, among others, were included under the wide umbrella of Romanitas. This was the inevitable result of an imperial system that constantly expanded and frequently accepted the peoples of conquered countries as Roman citizens. Not until the end of the first century B.C.E., with the reign of Augustus, do we begin to see signs of a distinctively 'Roman' art, an identifiably 'Roman' cultural ideal. Read any book on the origin or life of Rome, from Romulus and Remus to Augustus.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

Yalta meeting of Churchill, FDR and Stalin

Wednesday, February 24, 2021. A History of United States alliances with the rest of the world. From its very beginning, the United States has forged alliances with other countries, from France, eager to oppose Great Britain in 1776; Great Britain’s assistance for the Confederate States during the Civil War; President Wilson’s attempt to form and join the League of Nations; our alliance with Great Britain, China, France and the Soviet Union in World War II; formation of the United Nations; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. How helpful have these alliances been? Home in on an agreement in our past, or one that exists today, and discover its benefits and costs.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

Wednesday, March 31, 2021. The Quest for Truth in History.  How do we know it’s true? We’ve just gone through a difficult time in our national history, when what you may have believed may have been false, and what was “false” depended upon your political orientation. Propaganda and deception have always been used by governments against the outside world and for their own people.  How can the intelligent individual figure out what is true and what is false? [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

 

Tigray survivor, Ethiopia

Wednesday, April 28, 2021. History of North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, and including Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Mauritania and more. Pick a nation or a group of nations in the northern tier of Africa and learn how they interact, how they came to be, what problems are they having, or had, that attracted world attention in the past.  Some examples: The Barbary Pirates and how America’s President Jefferson took them on; The Italian Colonial history in Abyssinia and Somaliland; World War II—Field Marshal Rommel in North Africa; “Carthago delenda est!” The Punic War between Rome and Carthage; Tunisia and the Start of Arab Spring. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

 

Wednesday, May 26, 2021. Mass Refugee movements in History. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

 

 

 

LET US HAVE YOUR IDEAS FOR AN INTERESTING TOPIC FOR 2021!

 

 

 

 

Unique Elections in American History

 

History Book Club

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Unique Elections in

American History

Wednesday, October 28, 2020. Unique Elections in American History. The forthcoming election may seem the most unique, but this month we will look back at past elections.  Select any that you find interesting.  For instance: Election of 1828: Andrew Jackson vs. John Quincy Adams; Election of 1840: William Henry Harrison vs. Martin Van Buren; Election of 1860: Abraham Lincoln vs. Stephen Douglas vs. John C. Breckinridge vs. John Bell; Election of 1864 : Abraham Lincoln vs. George B. McClellan; Election of 1884: Grover Cleveland vs. James G. Blaine; Election of 1912: Woodrow Wilson vs. William Howard Taft vs. Theodore Roosevelt vs. Eugene V. Debs; Election of 1948: Harry Truman vs. Thomas E. Dewey vs. Strom Thurmond vs. Henry Wallace. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

 

Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

 

Mark Wahlgren Summers, A Dangerous Stir: Fear, Paranoia and the Making of Reconstruction; Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

            The Election of 1868.  Imagine an election when Americans thought that the choice before them meant either survival of the Republic or slipping into despotism. Imagine when newspaper headlines screamed about racial violence, and people, white and black, feared that the outcome of this election could mean disaster.

            Three years before, the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil ended, with thousands dead and more thousands suffering grievous wounds. Millions of slaves had been freed, but where could they go, what could they do? The President had been killed, and in his place was Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat, scooped up to run with Republican Abraham Lincoln for fear that there were not enough votes to beat Democrat George B. McClellan in the 1864 election.

            Johnson, from Tennessee, wanted to bring the secessionist Confederate States back into the Union without protection for the former slaves. The country was struggling with Reconstruction. Lincoln had led as a sensible president, inclined to welcome the errant rebels back to the Republic, but also demanding a fair program for handling the freed slaves.

            Johnson was no Lincoln.  He lacked the calm leadership of Lincoln, and his southern roots kept him from dealing seriously with the eleven Confederate states and working to bring them back into the Union. Besides, he had a strong need for alcohol. He had made a drunken spectacle of himself at Lincoln’s second inauguration. He was having a miserable time with Reconstruction, run by General Ulysses S. Grant, in competition with the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.

            In 1865, millions of freedmen stayed on or near the plantations that had enslaved them, working to feed their families, much as before.  Rumors circulated that at New Year’s 1866 they would be given land, so many refused tenancy agreements offered by the Reconstruction authorities.  Meanwhile, rumors flew, of blacks preparing a massive extermination of whites, and whites prepared to preempt black attacks by exterminating them. Reports of Black boys playing with sticks like swords got related and distorted to suggest armed black men drilling for combat.

            Stories of racial unrest in the Caribbean were relayed, which added to the fears of whites. And, to add to the whirlwind of fear and apprehension, armed white supremacist groups were preparing for a racial war, and just like today, there were enough hotheads to create fire where there was none.

            There were many encounters between Blacks and whites in the south, but usually they were initiated by whites and mostly Blacks died.  Many white southerners, now that Blacks were not safely slaving on plantations, wished they were all gone, or dead.

            Reconstruction in the former Confederate States involved bringing the states back into the Union, swearing allegiance to the Republic all over again, acceptance by the Congress, and sending Senators and Congressmen back to Washington. Radical Republicans insisted on strict requirements for bringing the states back, President Johnson, as a War Democrat, was inclined to be lax in his feelings about readmitting the states, and lax also in demanding rights and privileges for newly freed slaves.  For most southerners, even those who had never owned slaves, accepting blacks as their equals was impossible to contemplate.

            In 1868 President Johnson continued to clash with congressional Republicans, and disagreed with Major General Ulysses S. Grant, in charge of setting up military districts, often manned by Black troops all through the south.  There was a financial crisis, as supporters of paper currency issued during the war (greenbacks) clashed with supporters of gold and gold certificates as to redemption of bonds issued during the war. Johnson also clashed with his cabinet, all appointed by Lincoln. When he sought to fire his Secretary of War, Congress impeached him, but he escaped conviction by one Senate vote.

            The Democratic convention in 1868 spent much time deciding whom to run against the Republican candidate, Grant. Johnson fell by the wayside, as well as other Democratic favorites, and the party settled on former New York Governor Horatio Seymour.

            On November 3, 1868 voters went to the polls to vote for either Grant, the Republican candidate, or Seymour, the Democratic candidate. Eight of the former Confederate states took part; Texas, Virginia and Mississippi had not re-entered the Union, so their citizens did not vote.  It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in the reconstructed Southern states, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act. In the northern states, Negro suffrage was not achieved until ratification of the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution, in 1870.

            Grant won the electoral college and the popular vote, including newly enfranchised freedmen in the South.

            That was 1868. Mark Summers’ A Dangerous Stir focused well on this period with a colorful tale of men brought down from their lives that depended upon the cheap labor of African slaves, and all the lifestyle that afforded them…. It’s hard to imagine the thrill Blacks experienced when Emancipation had started the process of making them real Americans. The rumors that by New Year’s (1866) they’d be getting a piece of land…and then the disappointment.  Trace that forward, through years of White Supremacists raiding Black homes and lynching men and raping and killing women. And poll tax exams and gerrymandering and literacy tests to keep Blacks from voting. 

            Heather Cox Richardson, in The End of Reconstruction takes a longer view of this period after the Civil War. right up to the Twentieth Century, providing more analysis of American progress and failure over the years.

            Richardson gave this picture of Black land ownership in 1870: Only 6.7% of African- Americans owned land, almost half of Black landowners owned less than 20 acres.  Prominent African-American leaders were usually freeborn, educated, somewhat prosperous, and biracial.  Men listed in census as “mulatto” were four times more likely than regular Blacks to own land. For most freedmen, they worked for former masters, who usually tried to reinstate an economic system as close to slavery as possible.

            Follow the story of progress of African-Americans as they have fought to become Americans, entitled to all the privileges of white Americans….here we are in 2020, and we have seen months of mistreatment and murder of Blacks… Black Lives Matter protests, and a President seizing on the moment to fan the flames of racial hatred, turning the grievances of Black Americans into distrust of law enforcement and threats of a Marxist society if we should honor the Black grievances.

            We really haven’t come very far since 1868.

Samuel W. Coulbourn

 

Note: I have used the current custom of capitalizing “Black”, but not “White”. swc

 

 

 

 

 

-end-

HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2020-2021

Gloucester Dorymen

Wednesday, November 25, 2020. Gloucester and the Sea.  euser]

Gloucester has throughout four centuries cast its lot with the North Atlantic, remaining a maritime port for better or worse. The maritime culture of Cape Ann is the mix of a noble maritime heritage; ubiquitous sea influences that reach as far as the quarries behind Rockport and into the haunted tracks of Dogtown Common; seductive but capricious natural splendors; and untidy independence that repels some but converts other visitors into lifetime devotees. Read any book about the maritime history of Gloucester and Cape Ann. [Suggested by Richard Verrengia] 

There will be no meeting in December

2021

Wednesday, January 27, 2021. The Empire of “United” Rome. Over the years and then the centuries, much of Rome's population came from outside Italy -- this even included some of the later emperors, such as Hadrian, who was Spanish, and writers like Columella, Seneca, and Martial, also Spanish-born. Celts, Arabs, Jews, and Greeks, among others, were included under the wide umbrella of Romanitas. This was the inevitable result of an imperial system that constantly expanded and frequently accepted the peoples of conquered countries as Roman citizens. Not until the end of the first century B.C.E., with the reign of Augustus, do we begin to see signs of a distinctively 'Roman' art, an identifiably 'Roman' cultural ideal. Read any book on the origin or life of Rome, from Romulus and Remus to Augustus.  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

Wednesday, February 24, 2021. A History of United States alliances with the rest of the world. From its very beginning, the United States has forged alliances with other countries, from France, eager to oppose Great Britain in 1776; Great Britain’s assistance for the Confederate States during the Civil War; President Wilson’s attempt to form and join the League of Nations; our alliance with Great Britain, China, France and the Soviet Union in World War II; formation of the United Nations; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. How helpful have these alliances been? Home in on an agreement in our past, or one that exists today, and discover its benefits and costs. .  [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]

LET US HAVE YOUR IDEAS FOR AN INTERESTING TOPIC FOR 2021!