My lifelong Lincoln tour continues

Growing up in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln comes to you through osmosis. Lincoln’s Home, Lincoln’s Tomb, the Old State Capitol where the “House Divided” speech was delivered, it’s all right there. And I’ve been to them all. And it’s expanded into other Lincoln sites outside of Springfield: The Lincoln Memorial and Ford’s Theatre in DC, the birthplace and childhood home sites in Kentucky, the bed that he died on in Chicago, various statues and art pieces that I’ve written about here, and others I can’t think of at the moment. If it’s Lincoln-related, I’m interested in it.

So the chance to see the Mary Todd house in Lexington, Kentucky yesterday was something I could not pass up. It intrigued me because Lincoln would have come face to face with slavery within the Todd household. I wonder how it went down when that happened. It was probably an interesting time, I would imagine.

I took it all in, made a couple of suggestions based on things I had heard or read about Lincoln, and bought a Lincoln pencil sharpener in the ever-present gift shop at the end of the tour. I even signed the credit card receipt with Lincoln as my middle name, which I had never done before. It was an interesting experience, and it was something I’ll likely never do again. The Lincoln bucket list continues to shrink.

Lincoln 101

Although he died a century before I was born, Abraham Lincoln has been a big part of my life, and I’ve written about him on many occasions before. On the occasion of Presidents Day, I humbly offer the following:

For an explanation of how Lincoln came to be my middle name, click here.

For a time that I once dressed as Lincoln for a costume party. click here.

For a review of Lincoln statues in Chicago, click here and here and here.

For Lincoln statues in other places, click here.

For random Lincoln sightings, click here and here and here.

There are many more pieces like that on this site, but these are just a few to get things started. Happy Presidents Day to everyone.

Nothing trumps Lincoln, but…

When I saw Lincoln on the screen last year, I felt like a kid on the last day of school. There was so much to look forward to, and it didn’t disappoint. It was the movie of a lifetime for this ardent Lincoln buff, who was born up the road from where Lincoln lived, and carries Lincoln’s name with me everywhere I go.

I was blown away by Daniel Day-Lewis’ transformation into the man on the penny and the $5 bill. It felt like I was witnessing Lincoln, in a way that I never expected I would. And it felt like the Oscar for Best Actor was the very least that he was owed for this performance. I believe it still.

But yesterday I went to see Les Miserables in a theater. Hugh Jackman’s performance as Jean Valjean was perhaps the grandest acting turn I’ve ever seen on a movie screen. So now I’m conflicted about who will win the best Actor award. It’s a pity that only one of them can win.

Les Miserables was the first professional play experience that I ever had, back in 1989 at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. I loved the rotating stage, and the music, and the costumes, and all of it, really. “Lay Miz” didn’t become the phenomenon that it was for nothing.

At the end of the show, when the actors came out for their curtain calls, the final call–and the heartiest cheers–were for Jean Valjean. The audience really does become emotionally invested in him, as he raises Cosette and runs from Javier and becomes more than just 24601. Valjean must be an actor’s dream role, because he’s the beating heart of the show.

Not every actor could play the part of Valjean. It requires a gargantuan presence on the stage to carry it off, even if all of the showstopping numbers go to the other actors onstage. At the end of the show, it’s clear that Valjean represents the desire in all of us to do the best we can, no matter the obstacles in front of us. When he sings, with his dying breath. the line “To love another person is to see the face of God” it’s an emotionally draining end to an emotionally draining show. That’s a very high bar for any actor to reach. And Jackman fills the role as well as any actor could.

So I’m torn. Lincoln or Valjean? I feel as though I’ve been privileged to see both performances, and it’s a shame they have to compete against each other. I still think Lincoln will win, since real-life American hero (as played by an Irishman) trumps fictional Frenchman (as played by an Australian). But both performances, and the movies that they carry on their backs, remind me of how vitally important the arts are in our society. For a short amount of time, if we’re able and willing to spend $10 or so for a ticket, we can be transported to a place where stories are told and love, in its all of its many forms, wins the day. As it must.

A Lincoln apparition

I’m glad that Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln lived up to my expectations of it. It was a great movie that told a great story in a riveting way. It will win several Oscars when the time comes, and it deserves to. I don’t think anyone’s going to try bringing Lincoln to the screen again for a long time, either. Except for Saving Lincoln, which I’m looking forward to in a big way.

One of the benefits, besides the actual movie, was the publicity campaign surrounding the film’s release back in November. And this image, taken at a bus stop a few blocks from my house on a rainy night, has a certain spectral feel about it.

There have been many Lincoln posts in this space already, but people have been examining Lincoln from every possible angle since 1865, and the well hasn’t run dry yet. And it never will, either.

A couple of interesting Lincoln views

One of the perks of being a history geek is having some interesting old things. A piece I wrote about Mount Rushmore yesterday triggered a memory of an old issue of American Heritage from 1977. At about the same time Star Wars was redefining the movies forever, the self-proclaimed “Magazine of History” ran a story about the carving of Mount Rushmore. It’s the sort of a story that you probably couldn’t find on a newsstand today, at any price (and do newsstands even exist anymore?).

I love these unique views of the Lincoln sculpture on Mount Rushmore. The cover shot shows the type of maintenance work that is done on the sculptures’ faces to prevent them from cracking. Lincoln had no work done in life, but he’s probably a constant battle in these times. And the second image, which was taken from atop Washington’s head, shows some of the detail on Lincoln’s face that probably isn’t visible from a distance. It shows how finely detailed the work on the faces really is, considering that –as with the cover image–the men doing the work were suspended in midair at the time.

Of all the Mount Rushmore images online, I was not able to locate these two through a Google search, so this could be their online debut. If that’s the case (and even if it isn’t), I’m happy to present the images here. Rushmore is an American shrine, and I’m glad to say that I’ve seen it a couple of times in person. If, for some reason, you have not, I humbly suggest that a trip to South Dakota in the not-too-distant future. It’s worth the long drive to get there.

An alternate version of Lincoln’s words

Everybody knows the Gettysburg Address, or at least the version of it that appears in every history book you’ll ever see, and on the wall inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, and in other public places as well. But I recently came upon a slightly different version of it, and I wanted to share it here.

First, some back story. Last summer I read Lincoln’s Sword, a fascinating book by historian Douglas L. Wilson. In the book, Wilson examines Lincoln’s writings and speeches as a way of explaining Lincoln’s mastery of the language, and the way he used it to shape public opinion about the war. In fact, Wilson claims that our modern understanding of the Civil War comes from what Lincoln said or wrote about it.

But there were limitations to this in the 19th century. The technology to record his words didn’t exist yet, and so any written version of a speech which Lincoln gave depends on the memory of the person who wrote the speech down. Sometimes that person gets it right, and sometimes they don’t. And there’s really no way of knowing which is which.

The first–and perhaps most jarring–example Wilson gave in his book was Lincoln’s Farewell Address in Springfield Illinois upon leaving for Washington in early 1861. Lincoln spoke off the cuff to the people who had come to see him off that morning, and it wasn’t until after the train had left that someone asked Lincoln to write down what he had said. There are several instances of where Lincoln’s words, as written, differed from what reporters and witnesses at the scene claim that he said. Lincoln wrote down what he either believed he said, or wishes he might have said, but even his written words are not necessarily the words that came out of his mouth on that occasion.

With this potential–or even a likelihood–for discrepancies between the spoken and written versions of a speech, I came across a version of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address that was printed in the Chicago Tribune on November 21, 1863. The version is what a Tribune reporter–who presumably was present in Gettysburg on the occasion of Lincoln’s speech–told the world that Lincoln said. None of the differences changes the meaning of the words, necessarily, but it does leave open the possibility that what Lincoln’s handwritten version of the speech said differed from the words that he spoke on the stage.

Here’s what the Tribune reported that Lincoln said:

“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers established upon this continent a Government subscribed in Liberty and dedicated to the fundamental principle that all mankind are created equal by a good God, and [applause] and now we are engaged in a great contest. We are contesting the question whether this nation, or any nation so conceived, so dedicated can longer remain. We are met on a great battle field of the war. We are met here to dedicate a portion of that field as the final resting place of those who have given their lives to that nation that it might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a large sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men lying dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to detract [Great applause] The world will little heed, nor long remember, what we say here; but it will not forget what they did here [Immense Applause].

It is for us rather, the living, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried forward. It is rather for us here to be dedicated the great task remaining before us; for us to renew our dedication to that cause for which they gave the full measure of their devotion. Here let us resolve that what they have done shall not have been done in vain.That the nation shall, under God, have a new birth. That the Government this people founded, by the people, shall not perish.”

This version leaves out a few of the more memorable turns of a phrase that I am used to seeing in the Gettysburg Address: For example, the phrase “The last full measure of devotion” is missing, as is “conceived in liberty” from the first sentence, and “a new birth of freedom” from the penultimate sentence appears to have been clipped in the Tribune’s version of the speech. And the last sentence, with its rhythmic “of the people, by the people, for the people” construction, was not reported by the Tribune in that way at all.

Does this mean that the idealized version of the speech, which the Union soldiers recited back to Lincoln at the beginning of the recent Spielberg movie, is inaccurate? Not necessarily. It’s entirely possible that the Tribune‘s version of the speech was not completely accurate. Again, the person who wrote this down had no way of recording Lincoln’s words for additional reference. This version is what they though they heard, and it’s possible that other newspapers printed other versions of the speech as well. But it does raise the question of whether Lincoln’s words from the stage at Gettysburg are the same ones that we are familiar with today.

Again, in the absence of a recorded version of the speech, we’re hoping that what has been written down by Lincoln is accurate. For as honest as Lincoln certainly was, we all have problems remembering exactly what we said, sometimes. The broad strokes of Lincoln’s message have undoubtedly survived intact, but there’s also a possibility–perhaps even a probability–that some of his rhetorical flourishes may have been added after the speech. Either way, it’s always going to be the most important speech in American history. And I’ve just written almost a thousand words to prove that point.

It’s Lincoln or secession, but not both

There’s a petition online asking for Texas to be allowed to secede from the Union. This is as idiotic as an idea can possibly be, because it flies in the face of American history. To wit:

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. The slaveholding South decided they were not willing to abide this electoral result, so they withdrew from the Union before Lincoln even took the oath of office. It was the equivalent of taking your ball and going home because you were losing in a game. Nobody likes the person who will do that.

Lincoln came to office and never allowed the idea of secession to take hold as a legitimate course of action. He acted as if the Confederate states were still in the Union, like they had always been. And a terrible war was fought to decide whether states could just walk away from the Union when they wanted to. The answer, written in blood thousands of times over, was a resounding “no.”

Republicans–who presumably wouldn’t be so keen on secession if the Republican presidential candidate had won the election–love to call themselves the “Party of Lincoln,” and nominally that’s true. But if they breathe a word of secession–especially because they don’t like the way an election turned out–they must give up any right to use Lincoln’s name on their behalf. Lincoln saved the Union, and paid for it with his life, because he would not allow states to walk away from the Union.

Consider this a free history lesson, for all of the pro-secession Republicans that may be out there.

Finding Lincoln, again

I’ve written about unexpected encounters with Lincoln before. I grew up in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois, and I now live in Chicago, where he would have most likely returned to, had he lived to complete his second term. Lincoln seems to be everywhere, and yet I’m always happy when he turns up anew.

Last weekend, I was marveled at the recently-opened doors to the Deering Library on Northwestern’s campus in Evanston, Illinois. When the main university library opened up in 1970, the doors to the Deering Library–which was built during the 1930s–were closed up, until they were re-opened just a few days ago.

I worked in the Deering library as an undergraduate, so I knew it was a special place on the inside. But because the entrance was never used, the exterior was never really examined, by me or anyone else. We came and went through the main library entrance as Deering sat there, the hidden gem of the campus.

And then, a strange thing happened. A series of books about young wizards appeared, and they were all hugely successful. These books were then turned into movies, which were also tremendously successful. And the Deering Library, which seems as if would fit right in at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has now been reopened to the public. Not really a coincidence, if you ask me.

While wandering around the exterior of the building last weekend–taking it all in as I never did a quarter-century ago–I spotted a stained glass window containing Lincoln’s familiar visage on the second floor, facing out toward the main library entrance. The window was created when the library was built in the 1930s, but observing it for the first time was a joyous experience for me.

I took many pictures of my new find, wanting to capture the surrounding brick and the red ivy that adorned it. While the window had been for all the years that I was on campus, I only noticed it for the first time last weekend. But better late than not at all, which is also true for most good things in life.

The Lincoln movie is opening up later this month, and I’m sure that it will spark a revival of all things Lincoln. I’ve written many Lincoln pieces in this space, and entering “Lincoln” into the search bar of this blog yields quite a few results. This one is a special Lincoln find, though, and it comes with the added bonus of having a wonderful old library all around it. It’s well worth a look for any Lincoln fans who might be in the area.

Becoming Lincoln

Election fatigue is setting in, after all of these months of campaigning. And it’s true that I want the election to end quickly, but I think that there might be a post-election fight, just like there was in 2000 when George W. Bush was awarded the presidency by the Supreme Court. I very much hope I’m wrong about that.

But my real reason for wanting to flash forward a few weeks isn’t for the next president, but the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. The movie posters are up all around town, and the trailer is now in all the theaters and online. It occurs to me that, for all the pictures I’ve ever seen of Abraham Lincoln, I’ve never seen him smile. I’ve never heard him speak, either. I realize that Daniel Day-Lewis isn’t going to be Abraham Lincoln, but from the look of everything I’ve seen, he is going to become Abraham Lincoln. And that’s no small thing, either.

Seeing Lincoln onscreen will be challenging, in a way. He’s always existed as the face on the penny and the $5 bill, or the sculpture in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, or up on Mount Rushmore. To see Lincoln walking and speaking and laughing and riding a horse will be a new one for me.

I remember Sam Waterston’s portrayal of Lincoln in the 1980s, but I never really bought him as being Lincoln. And I’ve seen Lincoln impersonators before, but I’ve never gone all in with them, either. But Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis will be spending two hours and more making us believe that we are watching the Great Emancipator onscreen. I’m hoping they succeed at this, too. We’ll all find out soon enough.

A Lincoln triple play

Last year, my family and I traveled to Washington, DC for Spring Break. If you’re an American, and you’ve never been there before, get there as quickly as you can. There are items from the American experience that won’t be found anywhere but in Washington. Spend the money, and connect with your cultural home. And be sure to thank me after you do.

Of the many great experiences I had in DC, there’s one that really stands out in my mind. On Good Friday, we went to see a play in Ford’s Theater. There was a museum aspect of it, for sure, but instead of doing that, we got tickets to see a two-man play about what happened that night at Ford’s, and in the years after it, as well.

The date of the assassination was less important to me than the fact that it happened on Good Friday, the same day that we were at the theater. I looked up at the president’s box, which is draped with flags just like you would expect. All those years before, Lincoln was in that room, waving to those who had come to see him more than the play that was being staged. And a newspaper announcement that he was to be there with General Grant that evening led Booth to put his long-thought of  plan of assassination into action.

The next day, on our way out of DC, we all stopped and paid a visit to the Lincoln Memorial. You might feel as though you’ve seen it before, and in a way you have, if you’ve ever looked at the back of a penny. But the enormous scale of it is hard to realize unless you’ve been there in person. I read the words to the Gettysburg Address and the second inaugural speech, and looked upon the Lincolnian figure sitting in a chair, as if on a throne. But Lincoln was certainly no king, and I impressed that fact upon my children. The experience would not have been the same without them there with me.

The next day, Easter Sunday, we drove from Washington to Cleveland, Ohio, where I was able to complete the three-day Lincoln voyage by seeing The Conspirator in a movie theater. With thoughts of the assassination still fresh in my mind, it was fascinating to see how vengeance was extracted in the days that followed. It was as though I had prepped myself for the movie, entirely by accident.

There was no planning for such a unique convergence of events to occur. But Lincoln is all around us, provided that we want to find him. And one year ago, that’s exactly what we did.

Lincoln at sunrise

I’ve written about Lincoln several times before in this space. Some of the posts are here and here and here. There are many things about human nature that disappoint me, or worse, but our enduring interest in this boy from the Kentucky backwoods always makes up for them, at least in my mind.

This morning I was driving my eight year-old daughter to her ice skating lesson. The roads are so much clearer on Saturday morning than they are at any other time. As I was stopped at a red light at the corner of Western and Lawrence Avenues, I looked west toward the rising sun and saw a really cool image. I didn’t capture it with my camera, but sometimes that isn’t necessary. And if I do this right, I can describe it even better with my words. Let’s see how it goes.

The Lincoln statue at the intersection of Lawrence and Western is in a Chicago neighborhood known as Lincoln Square. The statue is called “The Chicago Lincoln” and was sculpted by Avard Fairbanks. Lincoln is depicted as a fully grown man, but has not yet reached the presidency. It’s a clean-shaven Lincoln, who cuts an impressive figure not as a Sampson-type railsplitter, but as an attorney and a man to be reckoned with.

But as the sun was coming up, it created a halo effect behind Lincoln’s visage.I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, as I started to think, once again, of what he accomplished to shape the nation that we live in today. And then, just at the moment that he had accomplished what he set out to do, it was taken away from him. Would the years following the Civil War, and the difficulties of putting the nation back together, have diminished our thoughts about him? Perhaps, but the Lincoln depicted in this statue hadn’t yet become the president.

The Lincoln that I saw, as the sun was rising behind his likeness this morning, was clear in his conviction that slavery is wrong, and he was also unwilling to just accept it as a fact of life, in the way that every American generation had done before him. He lost his bid to unseat a slave-appeasing senator in Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 but–fortunately for all of us–he wasn’t through yet.

The light changed, and I was once again on my way to the ice skating rink. For a minute or so, every time I blinked I saw the image of Lincoln, backlit by the rising sun. It wore off, as I knew it would, but it left me with the inspiration, once again, to try to put Lincoln’s accomplishments into words. I’ll never be able to capture it the way that I want to, but I’ll keep coming at it, over and over again. Lincoln deserves nothing less than that.

My favorite Lincoln statue

I’ve always been amazed by Abraham Lincoln. He literally came from nowhere, and saved the country at its darkest hour. He righted the worst wrong, while giving us bits of wisdom and insight that will ring true forever.

I have a Lincoln desk calendar in the office where I work, but since I can go weeks at a time without going into the office, I look forward to my return in an odd way. I spend the first few minutes tearing off the days, one by one, until I’m caught up to the most current date. It’s like a concentrated dose of lincoln, which never fails to give me new ideas to consider.

The calendar entry for Monday, November 7 is a case in point. I held onto it for future reference, and it repeats Lincoln’s advice to one one Isham Reavis in an 1855 letter. This would have been before Lincoln reentered politics in 1856, by joining the nascent Republican party. He was still a private citizen when he advised his friend to “always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” He was right, of course. Lincoln realized that, in order to succeed, you must first be determined that you will succeed. A century and a half after Lincoln penned these words, they’re still just as true today.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. The text is astonishingly brief–just 272 words in all. According to my word counter, I’m nearly at 272 words for this post already. And I’m going to keep going on, long past Lincoln’s brevity in summing up the entire Civil War. As Garry Wills said in Lincoln at Gettysburg, “The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration.”

Lincoln casts a long shadow in here Chicago. The bed that he died on in Washington DC is in the Chicago History Museum. An original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation was here, until the city burned to the ground in 1871. And he may or may not have lived out his post-presidential life here, if Booth had not intervened. But Chicago is the home of several Lincoln statues, including Standing Lincoln, which was created by renown sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  A century and more has gone by since it was unveiled in 1887, it’s still the standard for other Lincoln sculptures to measure up to.

The sculpture shows Lincoln clutching his lapel, in order to gather up his thoughts. Perhaps it was meant to show him delivering an address to Congress, or perhaps it was just saying a few words to a friend or advisor. Whatever it was, the logic and the eloquence and the humanity that seem to characterize the things that he said were sure to follow.

There are other reminders of Lincoln nearby, and I’ve already discussed one of them here. Others will follow, no doubt, since I take my inspiration wherever I can find it, and Lincoln is one source that I can’t imagine will ever run out.

In the Lap of Lincoln

The statue above is Young Lincoln by Charles Keck, located in Senn Park, Chicago.

Thinking about statues generally, there are a couple of assumptions that people might make. The first is that a statue is unveiled in a certain spot, and there it remains for time immemorial. Why immortalize someone if they’re going to be moved around afterwards? We’re a very mobile society, in general, but statues–like cemeteries–don’t fit this description.

And yet, that’s what happened to this statue. It was completed in 1945 by sculptor Charles Keck, and it was unveiled in the Chicago Public Library during 1945.  The war in Europe had dragged on for years, and the end was near at hand. Honoring the leader from a previous great war seemed appropriate.

After its public unveiling, Young Lincoln greeted library visitors for more than 50 years. And then, in the late 1990s, all that changed. The statue was essentially discarded as the Library underwent a transition into the Chicago Cultural Center.  For whatever reason, the statue was evicted from the new Cultural Center, and plunked down in its current outdoor location in a park near a high school in a residential area of Chicago. Keck did not live to see this indignity forced upon his work, as he died in 1951.

Its most striking visual aspect, other than its size, is the fact that Lincoln is depicted with bare feet. It makes sense that, as a poor man on the frontier, Lincoln did not wear any shoes. However, you could probably count the number of barefoot statues there are in the world on both hands (or feet). Lincoln’s bare feet reminded me of his humble beginnings, and the way he rose above his initial station in life. Who knows where we would be otherwise.

The statue’s location on a heavily trafficked street not far from Lake Shore Drive means that thousands of cars pass by it everyday. And if ever you’re in the neighborhood and want to have a look, it’s well worth the effort to seek it out.

Mr. Lincoln and me

For my family, the school year ends in late June.  Classes always begin after Labor Day, which turns Memorial Day into a day off from school, but not the beginning of Summer that is for many families.

It might sound like a drag to keep the school routine going for a few extra weeks each year, but it does have its benefits too. Perhaps the best one is that the end of classes can be parlayed into an immediate, pre-Fourth of July vacation. And that’s exactly what we did two years ago. We hit the road a day early (figuring that an unexcused absence and actual attendance on the last day of school aren’t much different from each other) and drove from Chicago to Ohio. Our final destination was the Outer Cape in Massachusettes, but driving there in a single day isn’t something I would advise (but please send me an email if you can pull it off. I’d love to hear about it).

After a night of rest, we got up early the next day to begin the long haul to the Cape.  Ohio soon bade us farewell, and Pennsylvania kept us for about as long as it takes to wait in a crowded drive thru at McDonald’s. Then it was onto New York, which would have been more exciting had it been the final destination. But, for this trip, it was more like the wall on the Superstars obstacle course from the 1970s TV competition. You had to first get over the wall before you could run through the tunnel, push the blocking sled, run through the tires, jump over the water hazard, clear the high jump, jump over the two hurdles, and then cross the finish line. It’s strange what you can remember sometimes, isn’t it?

Once we made it past Buffalo, we wanted to get gas and then stop for lunch. We had our GPS on, and set it to find a gas station nearest to our exit. As we came to a juncture off of the exit ramp, the GPS identified one gas station 1.4 miles away on the left, and another one 1.5 miles away on the right. We took the shorter distance and turned left. And then serendipity caught up to us in a big way.

The gas station was closed, and looked like it had been for some time. Apparently no one had informed the GPS people of this, though. We felt like we had been led astray, but with a week in Cape Cod upcoming, how upset could we really be?

Rather than doubling back toward the highway off ramp, we kept going the same way that we were already headed. And soon enough, we found ourselves arriving in the town of Westfield, New York. It was a quiet, picturesque town, and we wanted to soak it up for a little while before continuing on our journey.

After eating a picnic lunch under a shady tree near a gazebo, we were gathering up our things to leave when I noticed a statue off in the distance. I’m not sure why, but something drew me to it. I had some garbage to throw out, and I told my wife I’d catch up with her in a moment. I then walked in the direction of the statue and noticed it was holding something in its left hand. It looked like a stovepipe hat. I thought to myself “A Lincoln staute? Here? What for?” So I went to have a closer look.

It turns out that Westfield, New York has a part in one of the more well-known stories of the Lincoln lore. It was the home of Grace Bedell, who wrote a letter to Lincoln as he was running for president in 1860. She suggested that he should grow whiskers on his face, because they might improve his appearance. Since Lincoln took her words to heart, the beard and the stovepipe hat are part of the mental image that we have whenever we think of Lincoln.

The rest of my family came over to join me, and we spent a few minutes looking at the statues and posing for pictures with them.  There are actually two statues, one of Lincoln, and one of young Grace Bedell. She is holding a bouquet of flowers, and one of the flowers has fallen out and is attached to the brick sidewalk that surrounds the site. The statues are supposed to recall the moment when, at a stop on his train ride to Washington to assume the presidency in 1861, Lincoln asked that Grace Bedell be brought forward. He told her that he had grown the whiskers on her advice, and thanked her for suggesting it to him.  It’s a credit to Lincoln that he would give credit to Grace in the first place. Otherwise, her name might have been lost to history.

As we walked back to car, I recognized that I  had something of a “teachable moment,” and so I went for it.

“That sure was an interesting story about Grace and the letter she wrote, wasn’t it girls?”

“Yeah,” my six year old replied. “I liked looking at her statue.”

“Can you imagine Lincoln without his beard?”  I asked, knowing what the answer would be.

“No,” replied my 11-year old.

“So she did him a favor by writing to him and suggesting that he should grow a beard.”

“She sure did,” the eight-year old agreed.

“Do you think anyone told her not to waste her time sending Abraham Lincoln a letter like that?”

“Probably. Nobody ever listens to kids,” my 11-year old chimed in.

“Grace was 12 when she wrote that letter,” I continued on. “She didn’t think it was a waste of time, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” That’s about as close to agreement as you can get from an 11- year old.

“So if anybody tells you you’re wasting your time with something, but you believe in it, what do you think Grace would say?” I knew this was my last chance to get the point across.

“She would say to just do it, anyway.” With that, I hoped that the lesson of Grace Bedell would take root inside my daughters, and help them grow into the strong women I want them to become someday.

We set off to continue our journey to Cape Cod, and the summer fun that we knew would be waiting for us there.  I was happy that the GPS had let us down, but I trusted that it wouldn’t ever happen again.

Seeing what Lincoln saw

Kentucky is geographically close to Illinois. In fact, they share a border along the Ohio River. But when you live in Chicago, Kentucky is actually very far away. Anyone who has driven across Illinois from north to south, or vice versa, can tell you how far it really is. The same is true of New York, if you’ve ever driven the Thruway from east to west. Driving the width and breadth of most states gives you a new appreciation for their physical size.

My daughters get a week off from school for Spring Break, and our family custom is to pick a state and see what it has to offer. One year we did this with Arizona, another year was Virginia, and lucky winner for last year was Kentucky. Louisville and Mammoth Cave were the main attractions, but Cumberland Falls was also in the mix. And then there’s Corbin, the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I must point out that it was entirely incidental to already being in the state. I love KFC as much as the next guy, but I wouldn’t plan a vacation around it.

As we were driving south, from Louisville on our way to Mammoth Cave, I realized that Lincoln’s birthplace is also in Kentucky. Having grown up surrounded by all things Lincoln, and living near several Lincoln-related sites in Chicago, it occurred to me that we could learn something about the earliest days of Lincoln’s life in Kentucky. And so off we went.

After spending some time at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, and driving across the Kentucky countryside, we arrived sometime after 4:30 PM. We did not consider that there would be visiting hours, so we parked the car and walked up the hill to where the birthplace is located. Then we heard some rather ominous warnings that the site would be closing at any minute. To say we were being rushed out would be an understatement.

Atop the idyllic hilltop were the monument is located, it was kind of nice, especially with the springtime’s blooms all around us. But, unfortunately, there was orange construction fencing ringed around the structure that exists there. It was built to resemble a log cabin, most likely, but there was no way of getting close enough to see. That was certainly a bit disappointing. But I took a few pictures, tried to imagine how it must have been back in the winter of 1809, and got back in the car. I pulled away with a sense that an opportunity had somehow been missed.

But it wasn’t over yet. Located not too far from Lincoln’s birthplace is Lincoln’s boyhood home. We briefly debated whether or not to see it, since we didn’t know whether or not it would be open. But since it was a sunny Spring day, we decided to go and check it out.

After a short drive, we arrived at the site, which is located about 20 minutes away. (We don’t measure the distance in miles, but in time.)  It was still bright and sunny, but the visitor’s center was closed up, and there was nobody prodding us to leave.

We came upon a large field with a split rail fence, where my daughters posed for some pictures. We then decided to walk around and explore a little bit. We found a stream, and that’s when it hit me: structures come and go, but nature endures. I knew that the stream was there, just where it was when Lincoln was a young boy. Lincoln once knew that stream, when he was a young boy without any idea of what was waiting for him later in life. But he was once there, at the same stream that I was looking at.

It felt like time stood still, as my imagination carried me me back across the centuries. A much different world had once surrounded that stream, one where slavery was legal and a young boy encountered it for the first time. That boy had to make sense of what it meant, while being surrounded by adults who had never known, and could scarcely imagine, a world without it. It took many decades for him to right this wrong, but he did it and then paid for it with his life. At that moment, I felt a real sense of amazement and gratitude at what Lincoln was able to accomplish.

We left after about ten minutes, with my kids telling me they wanted to get to our hotel and the indoor pool that it offered. But I was glad that we made the trip, and I would not have traded the experience for anything.

Lincoln’s Hometown (and mine, too)

I was born in Springfield, Illinois, in a hospital that’s just up the street from where Abraham Lincoln lived for most of his adult life. Lincoln wasn’t born there, didn’t grow up there, and didn’t die there, but he did spend a good part of his life there. Or, as he said in his farewell address to the town, he passed “from a young man to an old man” there. And he lies there still.

There have only been a handful of presidents in American history, and I wonder if any of the others are as closely identified with their hometowns as Lincoln is. I rather doubt it, since the men who have grown up to be presidents are usually born in one place, more around at least a little bit in their lives, and win the presidency when they live someplace else. For instance, Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois (the only president who could say that), and then lived in several small towns around Illinois. But nobody knows that about Reagan. He’s associated with California, instead.

President Obama lived in Illinois when he was elected, but I don’t think there’s any danger that Illinois will ever be called anything but the “Land of Lincoln.” Lincoln owns the place, metaphorically speaking, and probably always will.

Every town and city in America has at least a few businesses that are named after Lincoln. And, in all likelihood, they aren’t named for business owners like Jack Lincoln or Fred Lincoln or even Seamus Lincoln. As a surname, it’s just not that common. So a business enterprise that calls itself “Lincoln Plumbing”–such as the one I found in Reading, PA during a random Google search–is hoping that your feelings about “Honest Abe” gives it a leg up over all the other plumbing companies out there.

In Springfield, this is taken to a whole new level. There’s Lincoln Yellow Cab, Lincoln Tower Apartments, Lincoln Greens Golf Course, and many, many others. And these are in addition to Lincoln’s Home, Lincoln’s Tomb, the Lincoln Presidential Center, and on and on. When your most famous resident may just be the quintessential American, why not?

Me, quoted in the Times

A number of years ago, I would travel for work on a regular basis. The usual destination was Seattle, and to take the edge off of that long flight I would treat myself to a copy of the New York Times. It would help me to pass the time, whether waiting in the terminal or up in the air. The Times writes stories nobody else would write, and uses words nobody else would use. That’s why they’re the one newspaper everyone knows about, whether you live in New York or New Delhi or anyplace in between.

So when I recently got a call from Stuart Miller, a writer for the Times, for a baseball card story he was working on, I gladly shared my thoughts with him. The nine year-old kid who once spent all of his allowance money on baseball cards was awestruck at the situation playing out for the middle-aged man I have become.

The story is here, and I’m referred to by my pen name of R.Lincoln Harris. Most importantly of all, the blog that I started almost two years ago is now cited in the Paper of Record. I hardly know where to begin with that.

I’m grateful to Stuart Miller for writing the story, to Josh Wilker for suggesting that he call me up, and to the Topps Company for giving me an entry into following baseball. It’s been a big part of my life over the years, and without baseball cards it wouldn’t have happened.

I hope that everyone reading this eventually does something their inner kid would be impressed with. I can assure you it’s amazing feeling.

A pause for inspiration

I love living in Chicago for many reasons, and the ability to park for a few minutes and gaze upon a Lincoln statue is one of them. This one is the closest to my house, about five minutes away. It’s called Young Lincoln, and it has a pensive quality that I like a lot. The sky and the clouds behind it also deserve to be seen.

As I was running around town today, the chance to pause for a few moments and reflect on Lincoln and his meaning to this country was quite meaningful. May we all have similar moments of reflection today, wherever and whenever they might present themselves.

A movie worth looking forward to

When I was teaching many years ago, I would go on and on about Jackie Robinson. One of my favorite quotes is his: “A life is only important for the impact that it has on other people.” And in a few days, we’ll get to see his story told on screen.

Last year was Abraham Lincoln, and this year is Jackie Robinson. I wonder who will be next?

Link to a post on ThroughTheFenceBaseball

Today was my first post on ThroughTheFenceBaseball under my new pen name of R. Lincoln Harris. I explained why that was being done here, but essentially when you have a common name like mine, you need to improvise in order to stand out.

We’ll see if “Singles” catches on or not. I like it, myself.

Looking for Suck

I realize that this post has a provocative title, and anyone who came here looking for porn is bound to be disappointed. There’s nothing of a sexual nature (I assure you) in this post, and if you’re looking for that, go someplace else. But if the title is intriguing, read on a little bit.

This afternoon my teenager and I were at Oak Woods cemetery on the South side of Chicago. It’s a beautiful place, with nearly 200 acres of natural beauty. I find cemeteries fascinating, and have written about them before in this space. But today we had a particular mission to find the gravesite of Adrian “Cap” Anson, the major leagues’ first superstar player. There are other things of note, and we saw most of them, but Anson was the reason we were there. We needed a photograph of his grave for a History Fair project. Once we had acquired that, it was time to explore a little bit.

After finding an Abraham Lincoln statue, and the Confederate Mound, and the grave of the man who invented Cracker Jack, the final thing that I wanted to see was a grave for a baseball player named Anthony Suck. He had only played in two games in the majors back in 1883, but his on-field accomplishments weren’t the reason I was seeking his grave. The man was born with the last name Zuck, and for reasons that only he knows, he changed his name to “Suck” instead. The word probably didn’t have the same overtones as it does today, is the only reason I can think of for why he might have done this.

I suppose that I just wanted to see a tombstone with the word “Suck” on it. No full name, no dates of death, and no other people buried by his side. Just a big slab of marble with the word “Suck” carved into it. Although it would probably be in all capitals, so it would read “SUCK.” I was already there at the cemetery, and will probably never find myself there again, so why not?

I had a map of the sections of the cemetery, but no more information than that. I parked my car, and the teenager chose to stay in the car, listening to the radio and texting her friends instead. I left the car running, and got out in search of Anthony Suck. I didn’t find him, most likely because there was snow on the ground, and I later learned that he has a flat headstone. I may have even stepped on it without knowing it. And, even if I had found it, I would have been disappointed, because apparently he’s buried under his birth name of Zuck. But I found something else that made the search worthwhile.

As I was wandering about in section B1 of the cemetery, I happened upon four cannons, a likeness of a soldier, and about four dozen graves. There was some story about who the soldier was supposed to be, but the elements had worn away the engraving, and that story is now lost. But it was a nice setting anyway, and the parting clouds on an overcast day made it even more so. I took a picture with my cellphone camera, and am putting it up on the Internet, both to honor the soldiers who are buried there, and to give anyone who finds this some sense of the beauty of the scene.

I walked back to the car, unsuccessful in my original goal, but appreciative of the fact that the men buried at that site had served my country, and helped to eradicate the scourge of human slavery. I don’t know anything more than that, but that alone is enough.

Submitted for the Cubs’ consideration

Dear Chicago Cubs,

I welcome the news that you will be turning away from random celebrities, in favor of giving the seventh-inning stretch more of a Chicago feel. To honor your decision, I want to kick off a campaign to secure myself an invite for one of the celebrity-vacated spots, for the 2013 season or whenever you see your way clear to inviting me.

To set forth some credentials, I offer the following: I’ve been a Cubs fan since I was seven years old. I wrote about my Cubs conversion, and have chronicled many other Cubs-related memories in this space, as well.

In addition, I also write about the Cubs for ThroughTheFenceBaseball, and would be happy to relate my experiences to that site and its readers. I also write for ChicagoSideSports, and what a story that would be for them, as well. I have several ideas to write about for them, but I promise that no other piece would matter until that story is told.

I feel, on some level, that I’ve helped to diagnose one of the problems plaguing the Cubs in the quest to win at Wrigley Field. Last year,  I wrote a piece about how Bruce Springsteen has brought success to the Bears, Blackhawks, and White Sox, after he played a concert in their home stadium. That piece ran in TimeOutChicago, and I was very glad to see it. But I also took it one step further on my blog.

I pointed out that Bruce Springsteen’s 2003 concerts at Fenway Park seemed to clear the way for the Red Sox to finally break their curse/drought/whatever in 2004. I looked at the playlists for those shows, and identified The Promised Land as a song that speaks of faith in someplace that hasn’t yet been seen. I theorized that if Bruce could play The Promised Land at Wrigley Field last summer, perhaps that would be enough to break whatever’s been afflicting the Cubs for so long. Nobody can say that Boston won for that reason in 2004, but nobody can say that they didn’t, either.

I went to the first Springsteen show at Wrigley last year, and even though I didn’t hear the Promised Land, it was a phenomenal show. I also picked up on a hidden Ron Santo tribute during the show, wrote about it, and sent it off to Jon Eig, the editor at ChicagoSideSports. He got the piece up on the site in time for others to read about it before the second Springsteen show, and this time, when My City of Ruins was played, I have to believe at least some at the show knew what was going on. Bruce even called the fans’ attention to it, in a way that he didn’t do at the first show. I can’t say I had a role in any of that, but again, I put the story out there and events played out as they did.

The second Springsteen show led off with The Promised Land, and I took to my blog the next morning and declared victory. I’m not foolish enough to take credit for the song actually being played. But I did lay down a marker that if anything good comes from it, I want it known that I pointed this out before the fact.

In the wake of the Ron Santo piece, I also wrote a Kerry Wood piece for ChicagoSide, and a Ryan Freel piece, and the Pete Rose piece that took off in ways I never imagined, and has helped lead to an evaluation of whether Rose has suffered enough for what he did. All of which has been very gratifying, and has put my words and ideas into the minds and on the tongues of many people.

I’m no celebrity, and I never will be, either. I’m just a dedicated Chicagoan who loves the Cubs like nothing else, short of my own family. My Twitter page, my blog site, my Tumblr page, and my Pinterest account all verify my devotion to the team, and my Facebook banner leaves no doubt as to my thoughts about baseball itself. And if that doesn’t merit even a bit of consideration for a singing gig at Wrigley Field, so be it. Just having the chance to type all of this up was interesting enough.

Thanks for the consideration.

Rob Harris

Rob Chill Manana

On Oscar night a couple of years ago, I put some of the winner’s names into an online anagram maker. And this year, I found myself sitting at the computer on Oscar night.

Just for fun, I typed in the name “Abraham Lincoln” not because he was nominated, but because there had just been a clip with scenes from the movie. Actually, Led Zeppelin being played over the Argo clip is what drew me into the room with the TV, and the Lincoln clip was on after that. And then Seth MacFarlane made a really bad Lincoln joke. If you saw the show, you know what the joke was. I’m not going to repeat it here, but I will say that I didn’t like Seth MacFarlane as a host, either. I’ll take Steve Martin as a host, anytime. I suppose that makes me old school, doesn’t it?

There were 12,000 anagrams that came up, and the list is here. I haven’t looked at all of the posibilities yet, but I know that “ROB CHILL MANANA” just has to be the best one: I go by Rob, I like to Chill, and Manana is always a good day, especially if it involves Chilling.

There’s not much more to say than that, other than “A Roman Chin Ball”, or “Mr. No Cabana Hill,” or possibly even “China Born Llama.” Maybe there’s 12,000 things to say, now that i think about it.

.

What’s in a name?

I have a new-found respect for the work of William Shakespeare, after seeing Romeo and Juliet performed onstage these last couple of nights. He tells a great story, and the words coming from the actors’ mouths are secondary to the emotions being displayed. That’s what doesn’t come through in simply trying to read the plays. The annotations get tiresome, and the fact is these plays weren’t written to be read; they were written to be staged. For the first time in my life, I understand that.

Maybe Shakespeare’s most well-known line–and he has many of them–is in the balcony scene, where Juliet calls “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” People who don’t know the first thing about Shakespeare know that line, 400 years after Shakespeare first penned it. But there’s another, also well-known line that Juliet speaks in the same scene.

Juliet is trying to come to terms with the fact that Romeo is a Montague, and she is a Capulet. Their families are enemies, and Juliet cannot understand why that should get in the way of her feelings about him. She asks the audience “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose would, by any other name, smell just as sweet.” And he’s got a point there.

Abraham Lincoln–who was known to be an avid Shakespeare enthusiast–would ask this question of his son: “How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?” His son would answer “Five legs” and Lincoln would say no, reminding his son that calling a tail a leg did not make it a leg. The gist of this, I think, is that you can name something whatever you like, but that does not change what that thing actually is.

I use Shakespeare and Lincoln, two men I have great respect for, to bring up the fact that I have a very good name, but also a very common one. I share my name with many, many people and, as I discovered this week, an AP reporter in Great Britain.

So when a story that I wrote–under the name I’ve used in everyday life since I was about 12–became a big thing on the internet, I have no doubt that this reporter got inquiries and calls from people thinking that he wrote it. I hope this wasn’t an annoyance for him, and I apologize if this was the case. It’s mildly frustrating for me because I don’t write for a living–although I’d like to think it might happen some day–but getting recognition for what you do is half the battle. And that’s impossible if someone else shares that same name.

There was a band in Los Angeles in the early 1970s that called themselves Mammoth. They started playing in clubs, doing the things that a band has to do to get noticed, but they had a problem. There was already a band named Mammoth, and people were never going to get to know their Mammoth if they had to figure out which one it was. So the newer band changed their name to reflect the last name of the guitarist and the drummer, and so Van Halen took flight. I think that name change worked out pretty well for them, so I’m going to try it for myself.

I can’t use the more formal version of my name, since that’s also the name of an established novelist (and I’m very fond of his work). It’s the name of a coffeehouse chain in New Zealand, as well, and one of my goals in life is to one day go to New Zealand, so I can walk around with a cup of coffee bearing my name (and his). So that’s out, too.

The most logical thing to do, then, is to look to my middle name. I’ve written before about how much I admire Lincoln, and how fortunate I feel to carry his name around with me through life. I’ll never be Abraham Lincoln–nobody could–but I can honor him, while also setting myself apart from all the others who share my name. So my Twitter handle is now going to be my pen name, as well. And if there’s anyone else out there using that name, they’re just going to have to get used to the competition.

Springfield as Mecca

Something I’ve never considered before is the Muslim practice of facing toward Mecca to pray. I know it’s their faith, and far be it from me to wander into an area I don’t have any knowledge about. But five times a day is enough to make the point that Mecca is very important for Muslims.

I say this because I recently received an inquiry from a reader of this blog about the Gettysburg Address tablet that is on the wall of my younger daughter’s school. He sent me some fascinating materials about the observance of the Lincoln centennial in 1909, of which the Gettysburg tablets were a part. There were roughly 450 of them installed, in every public and parochial school in Chicago at the time. I was told that four of these are known to still exist, which sounds about right after 103 years have gone by. It’s a fascinating thing to know this was ever done in the first place.

So where does the Mecca part come in? I had read, some time ago, that school children were told, on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, to face toward Springfield and recite something or do something or I can’t remember exactly what it was. But this was a one-time event, on a special day, and it struck me as a strange thing to do.

I understand the desire to pay tribute to Lincoln, and few are more enthusiastic about him than I am, but this act of reverence seemed out of place in this country. Part of me hopes that I’m imagining this, or that I misunderstood what was in the book I was reading. But I’m also trusting my memory enough to report that this did happen, or at least was supposed to happen, on February 12, 1909.

Many thanks to the reader who provided all of the interesting Lincoln materials, including the postcard above. They have certainly given me food for thought, as all things Lincoln generally do.