Brief Thoughts on Two Heroes

Response from a woman in Cambridge to the Boston Sunday Globe article about Bobby Orr ....

After the roar of the rink, a life of quiet good works

I was quite moved by Bob Hohler's article about Bobby Orr ("No. 4 to history, No. 1 to many in need," Page A1 , September 29 , 2013).

I am of a generation that remembers how great he was as our Number 4 on the Boston Bruins. Orr could have done many things with his life after his playing days were over. To read how he had taken his fame down this altruistic path of helping others, in such a quiet and humble manner, really touched me.

As a social worker, I know how much need is out there. I'm not religious, but I would say Orr is a saint.

SCORE !!  #4 Bobby Orr . . .
Where were you when all the Orr stuff was happening? We were in our apartment in Rockland, Massachusetts 1967 - 1972.  Every Tuesday and Thursday we would watch channel 38 at 7:30pm. The following morning at Reliable Fence Company we would talk hockey. Girls and guys included. Everyone loved the Bruins.

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The latest book on Edward Sherriff Curtis was wonderful, "Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher,"  winner of the National Book Award.

When the Indians who fought at Greasy Grass were interviewed by Curtis, they said Custer watched Reno get creamed and did nothing about it. No one had asked the Indians about what they saw that day until Curtis did in 1904. Gaul, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were all there.

At the end of each chapter, after the story behind each famous photograph, there is THE PHOTO. Acoma, Geronimo, Custer's Crow scouts at Little Big Horn, Canyon DeChelly, the Alaska Indians, Chief Joseph, the Mojave girl, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Hopi maidens, to name only a few.

Wow!

Six pages to go in the casita tonight. I am sorry to see it end. Curtis only died in 1952 at age eighty four. I started collecting Indian post cards years ago, not realizing that most of the images were his. Kathleen Gregory from Albuquerque was the first person to ever bring his name up. I wasn't really paying attention until then. Just more reasons to love and visit the southwest.

You too will become a fan after reading this book.

Carlos Benito Gregory: great book gift! Muchas Gracias!

Hasta  pronto  (see you soon),

Tocino

Sleeps On His Breath

Hairy Moccasin, White Man Runs Him, Crazy Horse, Tall Bull, Sitting Bull and Rain In The Face.

Edward Sherriff Curtis got his Indian name because when he traveled to the 80 Indian tribes to photograph them he would sleep on his blow-up mattress.

In 1904 & 05 he photographed and interviewed the Indians who fought at Little Big Horn. No one had asked the Indians about the Greasy Grass Fight.

No white person wanted to believe their side of the story. Especially Libbey Custer.

ycmtsup        

In our neighbor hood alone their are at least 20 people with the same name:

Walks With Dog Shit

In The Heart of the Sea

I have been holding off reading "In the Heart of the Sea" by, of course, Nathaniel Philbrick. I thought that it would start off positively and then go downhill from there so I stalled by reading some other books first.

The first one was about a couple who fix up a house, a castle really, in the western end of Sicily.

Next was a biography of A.P. Hill, a Confederate General from Alabama who had a major role at Gettysburg.

Numero tres was a book about Edward Sheriff Curtis, who photographed all the Indian tribes in the West. The book set was financed by J.P. Morgan, all because of President Teddy Roosevelt’s backing.

Curtis spent a lot of time in Canyon de Chelly with the Navajo, and at the three mesas in Arizona with the Hopi. He personally interviewed and took photos of three very famous chiefs: Red Cloud, Geronimo and Chief Joseph. He rode with three of Custer's scouts to the Little Big Horn: White Man Runs Him, Goes Ahead, and Hairy Moccasin. At the start of the book there is a glorious photo of Curtis with six Indians.



No one knows who the Indians are, or for that matter where the photo was taken. Curtis is the white man. My guess is that it was taken at Glacier National Park. It could also be the Tetons, but these Indians are dressed more like Blackfeet or Sioux. I own a deerskin Sioux warrior shirt very much like the ones they are wearing.

And then last night I started In The Heart of the Sea. OMG! I am only on page 12. Of course the story of the ship Essex inspired the climatic scene of "Moby Dick." Moby Dick was written on Holmes Road in Pittsfield Massachusetts, about one hundred and fifty miles inland, by Leonard Cohen I think.



Page xii
He soon realized that it was a whaleboat -- double ended and about twenty five feet long -- but a whale boat unlike anything he had ever seen. The boat’s sides had been built up by about half a foot. Two makeshift masts had been rigged, transforming the rowing vessel into a rudimentary schooner. The sails -- stiff with salt and bleached by the sun -- had clearly pulled the boat along for many, many miles. Coffin could see no one at the steering oar. He turned to the man at the Dauphin's wheel and ordered, " Hard to helm."

Under Captain Coffin's watchful eye, the helmsman brought the ship as close as possible to the derelict craft. Even thought their momentum quickly swept them past it, the brief seconds during which the ship loomed over the open boat presented a sight that would stay with the crew the rest of their lives.

First they saw the bones -- human bones -- littering the thwarts and floor boards, as if the whaleboat were the seagoing lair of a ferocious man eating beast. Then they saw two men.

Tom and Eileen know all this because they lent me the book. But did they know that Captain Coffin had a daughter in Nantucket named Kezia?

Thanks to Tom Egan we all read Philbrick’s "Mayflower" and then "The Last Stand," about the Little Big Horn. Only twelve pages into this book about the whaler ship Essex of the island of Nantucket and already I am captivated.

Second Mate
Robert Bacon