"In God We Trust"

Each day my local paper contains a small column called "Today in History", listing things of note that happened on that day. I rarely read the column, but yesterday, for some reason, I did. It contained the following item:

"In 1957, the motto "In God We Trust" began appearing on U.S. paper currency."

I was surprised to realize I was alive when this happened, and so began another deep dive into the bowels of the Internet. Why did this happen? What did this phrase even mean back then? Why was it important to put it on all of our paper currency? Was anyone -- most notably constitutional scholars -- opposed to it at the time? As my brother-in-law would say, these were indeed some of the questions. As I spiraled down the rabbit hole, even more questions emerged.

The first thing I discovered was that "In God We Trust" is the official motto of the United States, approved by Congress and signed into law by President Eisenhower on July 30, 1956.

Some Background

Prior to 1956, the de facto motto of the U.S. was "E pluribus unum", Latin for "Out of many, one". This phrase hearkens back to our nation's founding, July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress passed the following resolution for the creation of a national seal:

“Resolved, that Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson, be a committee, to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America.”

It took six years, multiple committees and many designs before the Great Seal of the United States was approved. In the end, only one feature of the original committee's design remained untouched: the inclusion of "E Pluribus Unum" to boldly declare the birth of a unified nation from 13 individual colonies.

Learning this, a new burning question was immediately raised. What could have possibly caused the nation to believe that a lofty and patriotic motto such as this, created and designed by three of our most educated and respected founding fathers, should be replaced by "In God We Trust"?

Deeper Background

The use of "In God We Trust" dates back to the Civil War, when Reverend M.R. Watkinson, a Protestant minister from Pennsylvania, believed that the government needed to send a clear message that God was on the side of the Union and its army. In 1961, he decided to send the following letter to Samuel P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury Department:

Chase acted almost immediately, sending the following letter to James Pollock, Director of the U.S. Mint:

After some back and forth, Chase and Pollack decided that "In God We Trust" should be used as it was similar to "In God is our trust", a phrase found in The Star Spangled Banner. Following congressional approval on April 22, 1864, coins containing this new inscription began circulation.

A few northern newspapers questioned this change. The New York Times, in particular, wrote: "Let us try to carry our religion — such as it is — in our hearts, and not in our pockets". The general populace, though, approved of the change. The controversy disappeared and the inscription now appears on all U.S. currency.

It Finally Becomes the National Motto

In the early 1950's, the U.S. was embroiled in the Cold War abroad and McCarthyism at home. Similar to the demonizing of the enemy that occurred during the Civil War, ministers began denouncing "godless communists" and insisting that the U.S. declare that God was on the nation's side. In the midst of this fervor, Dwight Eisenhower was elected President. By all accounts, Eisenhower was a deeply religious man who wore his faith on his sleeve. While President, he was baptized into the Presbyterian Church, opened Cabinet meetings with a moment of silent prayer, and initiated something called the National Prayer Breakfast. He also appointed the Reverend Billy Graham as his personal spiritual advisor. With this as fertile ground, Florida congressman Charles Bennett sponsored a bill in 1955 to make "In God We Trust", the national motto. His rationale:

“In these days when imperialistic and materialistic communism seeks to attack and destroy freedom, we should continually look for ways to strengthen the foundations of our freedom.”

While not as eloquent or erudite as Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, Bennett's proposal carried the day with Eisenhower. The bill was adopted by Congress and signed into law by Eisenhower in 1956.

 A Bit about the Establishment Clause

Before we go any further, a brief discussion is needed of the Establishment Clause, the opening clause of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

Thomas Jefferson believed that this clause created an iron-clad "wall of separation between Church and State". In 1947, Justice Hugo Black echoed Jefferson's belief, saying: "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state," and that this wall "must be high and impregnable". 

With this as an historical backdrop, you might wonder how a national motto centered on God could have penetrated this wall. To date, though, the U.S. Court system has treated this "wall" more like a screen door, allowing the belief in a single Almighty deity to permeate many of the nation's laws and institutions.

In Zorach v. Clauson (1952), while not dealing specifically with the national motto, the Supreme Court stated that the nation's "institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" and that the government's recognition of God does not in any way support the establishment of one religion or another.   

In Aronow v. United States (1970), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit specifically ruled that the use of the national motto on currency is "excluded from First Amendment significance because the motto has no theological or ritualistic impact", having only "'spiritual and psychological value' and 'inspirational quality'". Atheists and agnostics aren't being pressured to believe or trust in God in order to live in the United States and use its currency.  

In 1962, Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law, coined a new legal term, ceremonial deism, to refer to any religious reference or practice by the government that has lost its inherent religious connotation due to longstanding use. Per Rostow, these references and practices should now be viewed as simply "cultural rituals". Prominent examples of Rostow's ceremonial deism are the references to a single deity in the national motto and the Pledge of Allegiance. Beginning in 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States began using this term to decide whether to grant an exemption to the Establishment Clause. This leads directly into my final topic.

The Slippery Slope and the Pledge of Allegiance

I've finally reached the real focus of this post: the Pledge of Allegiance. The nation's first pledge  was composed in 1885 by a man named George Balch, an officer in the Union army during the Civil War. 

“We give our heads and hearts to God and our country; one country; one language; one flag!” 

It was rather simple pledge, but it was used by many groups in the U.S. until the 1920's. In 1892, Balch's pledge was revised by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, into a version fairly similar to what is said today. 

"I pledge Allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

While Bellamy's version omits any mention of God, it had its own special problem. Bellamy recommended that his pledge be recited while performing the Bellamy Salute. It began with the right hand outstretched toward the flag, palm down and ended with the palm up. With the rise of the Nazi party, Congress made the obvious move in 1942 and replaced the Bellamy Salute with a hand over the heart.

Children performing the Bellamy Salute in 1941

 

Also in 1942, the West Virginia Board of Education made it a requirement for school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while saluting the flag. Failure to do so would result in expulsion, with parents liable for a fine up  to $50 and jailed up to 30 days. While most families in West Virginia complied with this requirement, it created a major problem for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their strict interpretation of the bible includes the belief that saluting and pledging allegiance to the flag violated God’s command against worshiping graven images.

After a number of Jehovah Witness children had been expelled, one of the families challenged West Virginia's requirement and filed suit against the Board of Education. In West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette, the Supreme Court unambiguously stated that the Board's compulsory recitation and salute of the flag was a violation of the student's free speech.  

 "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

Despite this warning from the Supreme Court against forcing citizens to profess an act of faith against their will, the board of directors of the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic organization) adopted a resolution in 1951 to add "under God" into their recitation of the Pledge. Again, this was in direct response to the fears of many Americans during the Cold War of "godless communism". In 1953, congressman Louis Rabaut of Michigan sponsored a bill to add the words "under God" to the Pledge. As with the national motto, President Eisenhower was completely on board with Rabaut's bill. As he signed the bill into law on June 14, 1954, Eisenhower issued a statement that began as follows:

"From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this re-dedication of our youth, on each school morning, to our country's true meaning."

It's difficult to understand why Rabaut's bill isn't seen as a violation of the Court's decision in Barnette. The bill endorses a specific religious belief (a single deity) and incorporates this belief into the Pledge of Allegiance, an oath that all citizens of the U.S. are expected to recite regularly. While the belief in a single deity aligns with Judeo-Christian religions, many other religions hold different beliefs. Indeed, many other people don't believe in a God at all.  Per Martha Nussbaum, Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, forcing these individuals to affirm that the United States was created "under God” is tantamount to forcing Jehovah Witnesses to give the Bellamy Salute. She further states:

"What, however, about the timid child, or the child who has reasonable worries about stigma and peer pressure? The history of the pledge and of the related school prayer issue makes it obvious that non-participation often comes at a cost. If Ellory Schempp was greeted with outright persecution for reading from the Quran, we can expect that children who refuse to say the pledge—whether they stand in silence, sit, or leave the classroom—will be courting the hostility of teachers, administrators, and, perhaps most clearly, their fellow students. The whole point of the pledge, in the mind of its original supporters, was to put all Americans on record as supporting patriotism, and to inculcate the value of patriotism by a daily required exercise in the schools. From the point of view of these concerns, the non-participating child is bound to look at the very least weird and not fully American, at the worst subversive and threatening."

Proponents of the new Pledge point to the 1952 ruling by the Supreme Court in Zorach v. Clauson  which ruled that the First Amendment couldn't possibly require a complete separation of Church and State because, if it did:

"Churches could not be required to pay even property taxes. Municipalities would not be permitted to render police or fire protection to religious groups. Policemen who helped parishioners into their places of worship would violate the Constitution. Prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals to the Almighty in the messages of the Chief Executive; the proclamations making Thanksgiving Day a holiday; `so help me God' in our courtroom oaths--these and all other references to the Almighty that run through our laws, our public rituals, our ceremonies would be flouting the First Amendment."

All of this seems quite a bit far-fetched. Would it really be that difficult to remove references to God in our government? Would police, fire  and first aid personnel really be prevented from performing their duties at a house of worship?  No matter. If there are, indeed, legitimate concerns, I an in total agreement with the conclusion reached by Martha Nussbaum:

"There are traditional references to religion in our public life that should not be pruned away and that pose no constitutional problem. It is extremely doubtful, however, that the pledge, in its current form, is among them."

Artificial Turf: Why is this still a thing?

Houston Astrodome, circa 1968

Artificial turf is incredibly resilient, and I'm not referring to its springiness. I'm talking about its amazing ability to survive as a product despite all of its horrible qualities.

A Bit of History

Artificial turf's life began in 1965 when the Houston Astros needed to find a more palatable surface for the Astrodome.  Their original attempt, using a specialized type of natural grass, failed miserably because the dome's semi-transparent ceiling panels didn’t let in enough sunlight. Their second attempt,painting the ground green to make it look like a real baseball field, was a low-tech embarrassment. Their final attempt was to install ChemGrass, an artificial plastic product created by Monsanto. In a stroke of marketing genius, they rebranded it as AstroTurf and it was an instant success. Sports fields all over the United States began using it, indoor and out, giving fans a perpetually green field to look at and athletes a surface with a high degree of traction, even in inclement weather. 

Problems Arise

AstroTurf's popularity began to plummet as its drawbacks became clear. It was a harder and had less cushioning than natural grass, with very little "give". This led to a variety of back and spinal issues. Sliding on it generated a nasty case of "turf burn" on unprotected skin.

Its high degree of traction caused knee and ankle injuries. When installed outdoors, it became extremely hot on sunny days. 

Problems Continue

Modern-day artificial turf has ameliorated some of its original problems, but it is still unpopular with professional athletes.  In September of 2023, the NFL Players Association issued the following statement:

The surface temperature of artificial turf is still a problem . Per the New York State Department of Public Health:

"Synthetic turf fields absorb heat, resulting in surface temperatures that are much higher than the temperatures of the surrounding air. In June 2002 at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah, the average surface temperature on a synthetic turf field was reported to be 117°F while the average surface temperatures on natural turf and asphalt were 78°F and 110°F, respectively. A maximum surface temperature of 200°F on the BYU synthetic turf field was reported."

A turf specialist at the University of Missouri reported measuring an air temperature of 138°F at “head-level” height on the university’s synthetic turf field on a sunny 98°F day. The surface temperature of the field was reported to be 178°F."

The artificial turf on opening day at the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Edmonton, Canada was reportedly 120 degrees at kick off. FIFA, the world's governing body for soccer, now requires all World Cup matches to be played on natural grass.

The Environmental Cost

Beyond the harm it can inflict on those playing on it, artificial turf comes with a substantial environmental cost. Proponents of artificial turf attempt to ameliorate these costs by claiming that it doesn't require fertilizer or herbicides, doesn't need to be watered and doesn't need to be mowed by fossil-fueled lawnmowers. These arguments pale in comparison to the amount of environmental damage caused by the creation, use and maintenance of artificial turf.

It's Plastic!

The synthetic grass fibers in artificial turf are commonly made from polyethylene, the most widely produced plastic worldwide. Polyethylene, itself, is made from fossil fuels (usually petroleum) using an energy-intensive process that uses even more fossil fuels!  But once these grass fibers have been created, the environmental impact of artificial turf isn't over. In fact, it has only begun.

 

It Contains PFAS!

PFAS (short for "per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances") is a collection of man-made chemicals created in the 1940's. It's estimated that more than 10,000 chemicals are currently classified as PFAS. They have an incredibly strong carbon-fluoride bond, a feature used to make many household products resistant to heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. But this strong bond has a big downside. It cannot be broken down by any natural processes, which is why PFAS are called "forever chemicals".  Once a PFAS chemical enters your body it will remain there until you die, which might happen sooner than you'd like.

Two PFAS chemicals (called PFOA and PFOS) are  present in the vast majority of artificial turf. PFOA has been classified as a human carcinogen, while PFOS has been classified as a potential human carcinogen. Because of resource issues, very few of the over 10,000 PFAS chemicals have yet to be tested.

While some vendors claim to be producing PFAS-free turf, subsequent analysis has proven otherwise.  A few months ago, the Center for Environmental Health sent legal notices to Home Depot and Lowe’s demanding that they stop selling artificial turf known to contain high levels of PFAS or, at a minimum, to provide a warning label on their product:

“No one should be inadvertently exposed to toxic chemicals,” said Kizzy Charles-Guzman, CEO of the Center for Environmental Health. “Our lawns are places in our homes where we should be able to play and relax, safely. They should not be spaces where we worry about exposing ourselves to harm. Touching artificial turf lawns can expose us to PFAS chemicals when transferred from the turf to our hands and then our mouth.”

It Degenerates into Cancerous Micro and Nanoplastic 

If you're thinking, "Lucky me! I don't play or walk on artificial turf!", I have bad news for you. PFAS-laced polyethylene will not fully decompose for approximately 1,000 years. Instead, it will degenerate into microplastics and nanoplastics which will make their way into air, soil and water.  In 2022, the EPA reported that 97% of all Americans already have PFAS in their blood. PFAS has even been detected in fetuses.

And then there's this. In 2022, FieldTurf, a producer of artificial turf, stated that the life expectancy of artificial turf is approximately 8-10 years. After that, it should be replaced to ensure proper performance and safety. That means that plastic turf, created using an enormous amount of fossil fuel, will spend 1% of its life as a lawn or athletic field, and 99% of its life as landfill, leaching cancerous microplastic and nanoplastic into the environment.

 It Contributes to Global Warming 

Natural grass absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and emits oxygen. In contrast, artificial turf absorbs no carbon dioxide and emits two greenhouse gases, ethylene and methane. On warm, sunny days, artificial turf can reach a temperature of 200°F, contributing to the "heat island" effect. Per the University of Utah, "lawns and turfgrass act like a swamp cooler—water moves through the plant, evaporating from tiny holes in the leaves and cooling the air."

It Contributes to Stormwater Runoff

Rain falling on natural turf is either absorbed by the vegetation, returned to the environment by transpiration, or filtered through the soil into the underlying aquifer. Artificial turf is an impervious surface. Any rain falling on it will either run off or will be collected by an underground system to be piped elsewhere via the town's stormwater system.  None of the rainwater will reach the aquifer beneath the field.

 

 It Destroys the Underlying Biome

A biome is defined as a "large, naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat". In the case of an athletic field or a park, the biome is all of the ground beneath it. Covering this biome with a carpet of plastic effectively kills all of the insects and microbes below by preventing water from infiltrating into the soil, super heating the soil, leaching PFAS and other chemicals into the soil, and eliminating the exchange of gas and oxygen between the soil and the atmosphere. All this has a ripple effect that disrupts the entire food chain for all living things in the area.

 

 NJ Sierra Club Action Alert on Artificial Turf

Despite its overwhelming health and environmental dangers, artificial turf is still, inexplicably, a popular choice, even in a supposedly environmentally-progressive state like New Jersey.

In 2021, as his first term came to an end, the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters (LCV) labeled Governor Phil Murphy "America's Greenest Governor". In 2024, in the middle of his second term, the LCV no longer felt that way, downgrading Murphy's environmental score from an A to a B+. One reason for the downgrade was that he permitted millions of dollars to be diverted each year from the Clean Energy Fund to other non-environmental initiatives. A few months ago, the NJ Sierra Club began issuing Action Alerts to its  members with a similar refrain:

(click to view alert)

Sierra Club Action Alerts aren't unusual, but this one seemed bizarre, almost surreal, and begged a number of questions.  Why is a grassroots petition needed to inform the erstwhile "Greenest Governor" that artificial turf is bad for the environment?  Why is artificial turf being included in a project overseen by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, a department who's stated goal is to "help New Jersey protect its environment and promote the health of its citizens"? Finally, why is the Green Acres Fund being used for artificial turf? This is a fund that was intended to acquire open spaces and develop lands for recreation and conservation in order to "preserve and enhance New Jersey’s natural environment".

Initially, I thought that this was a joke or, at the very least, a case of the Sierra Club stretching the truth a bit, but it was neither. Per this announcement, Governor Murphy recently approved the use of almost 100 million dollars from the Green Acres fund for community recreation projects throughout the state. While providing assistance to local governments for parks and outdoor recreation facilities is a legitimate use of Green Acres money, 10% of that money will be used to:

• Create a multi-purpose synthetic turf field in Mount Holly;
• Replace existing grass fields with synthetic turf at Mercer County Park in West Windsor;
  
• Create a synthetic turf field at Tony Canale Park in Egg Harbor;
• Create a synthetic turf soccer field in Cape May Street Waterfront Park in Harrison ;
  
• Install synthetic turf at the playground in James J. Braddock Park in North Bergen.

Laying down acres of plastic grass is clearly not in accord with the Green Acres mission statement, excerpted below from their web site:

"To achieve, in partnership with others, a system of interconnected open spaces, whose protection will preserve and enhance New Jersey’s natural environment and its historic, scenic, and recreational resources for public use and enjoyment."

There is absolutely nothing "natural" about artificial turf. In 2021, when Princeton Township proposed the installation of artificial turf at one of their parks, the Princeton Environmental Commission produced this analysis which concluded that "no artificial turf be installed at Hilltop Park or any other park in Princeton." It's hard to disagree with such a forceful and succinct statement.

Sheila Mullen Langlois

January 30, 1949 —  May 2, 1982

Exactly 42 years ago today, my cousin, Sheila Mullen, died as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile crash. While I’ve known about this tragic death all these years, it is only today that I feel compelled to write about it. Here’s why.

A few days ago, another cousin, Pete, emailed to ask if I had any pictures of Sheila. This was somewhat of an odd, out of the blue request, so I asked Pete what had motivated it. He responded saying he had recently been talking with a friend and a memory involving Sheila had popped into his head. Here's the gist of it:

In the mid-60's, Sheila's entire family (Uncle Jack, Aunt Kathy and their four girls) traveled to the Philadelphia area to visit the relatives. By all accounts, visits like this were rare. As such, the girls were never very close with any of their cousins. Sheila, the oldest, was remembered as being somewhat shy and quiet. But since Pete and Sheila were about the same age, Pete was "encouraged" by his parents to take Sheila to a dance at the local Catholic Church. When Pete arrived at the dance accompanied by this beautiful young woman, his friends were shocked. They asked Pete why he had been hiding his girlfriend from them. Pete replied, "She's not my girlfriend, she's my cousin from Connecticut, so she's available!".

I didn't press Pete for further details, but that little story was more than I had ever heard about Sheila in my life. Although she was only six years older than me, I don't remember ever meeting her. She was born in Jersey City in 1949 and moved to Connecticut in the mid-50's (about the same time I was born). In 1972, she married Ken Langlois and moved to Michigan in 1978. The fatal car crash occurred four years later. Here is a copy of her obituary from the May 5, 1982 edition of the Hartford Courant:

As expected, the obituary provides only minor insights into Sheila, so I asked Pete if he had any other memories of her. He provided one more small anecdote. 

Our grandmother, Bridget Agnes McHugh Mullen, died in July of 1975. I was 20 years old at the time and attended her funeral. Everyone did, including the Connecticut Mullens. After the final gathering at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, Pete and his wife Marie went back to their car – an AMC Matador – and discovered it wouldn’t start. Sheila and her husband, Ken gave them a jump-start and followed them back to Pete’s parents’ house in Rockledge to troubleshoot the problem. Somehow, I  managed to be at the event where this happened without meeting or talking with Sheila or her three sisters.

At this point, I knew I wanted to write something about Sheila, but I was stuck. The post would be woefully incomplete without a photo of her.  I was now in the same boat as Pete, only worse, since I had no idea what Sheila looked like. I began by searching through Ancestry's genealogical databases. Their yearbook collection is my go-to place for photos of people in their teenage years, but I faced two difficulties: I didn’t know where or when Sheila went to high school. My best guess was that she attended East Catholic High School in Manchester, Connecticut, graduating in either 1967 or 1968. Sadly, Ancestry’s database only had East Catholic yearbooks for 1975, 1980 and 1982. 

Discouraged and ready to give up, I decided to search the entire web to see if any site other than Ancestry had East Catholic yearbooks on file. In football terms, this is known as a Hail Mary pass. Unbelievably, this Hail Mary was caught for a touchdown! I found a site dedicated to the East Catholic High School Class of 1970 that contained East Catholic yearbook photos from 1965 through 1969 as well. And that's where I found Sheila Mullen's 1967 senior year photo, displayed at the top of this post.

That’s about all I’ve got, except for one personal observation. Starting at around the time my parents died in the late 1980’s, I became very disdainful and dismissive of organized religion. For the most part, I'm still that way. I continue to believe in a Supreme Being and an afterlife of some sort, but the ability to communicate with God and those who have gone before us is, to me, a childish fantasy. There are no ghosts. God and our ancestors do not intervene in our lives.

These last few days, though, have put a few tiny chinks in that armor. Why did that story about Sheila suddenly pop into Pete’s head? Why did I feel compelled to spend hours researching a cousin I never knew in order to commemorate her death in a blog post? Why, after hours of fruitless search, did a photo of Sheila fall into my lap, dare I say, miraculously? And why did I carefully re-read Sheila’s obituary, looking for any tidbit of information I might have missed, and discover that today is the 42^nd anniversary of her death?  I can't explain any of it, but it all seems a tad eerie and way too coincidental.

If anyone else has any other memories of Sheila, feel free to add them by clicking on the comment button. If you feel like it, add your name; otherwise your comments will be attributed to Anonymous, which is also fine. 

Rest in peace, cousin Sheila.

   

The Whittier Bridge of Ossipee, New Hampshire

This post serves two purposes. First, it demonstrates how easily my brain can be hijacked and sent careening down a rabbit hole for hours at a time. But it should also leave you feeling happy about yourself, happy you're not a local politician in the state of New Hampshire.

The story begins almost two weeks ago when New Jersey was hit by a magnitude 4.8 earthquake. While it was unnerving to those of us who experienced it, it caused minimal damage and quickly disappeared from the news cycle.Yesterday, though, the local paper decided to milk the story a bit more by running an exposé on the fact that typical homeowners insurance doesn't cover earthquake damage. Stop for a second and imagine you are the reporter tasked to write this story. How in God's name do you make the nuances of homeowner insurance interesting?  Well, hats off to the author, because he found a way to hook me. Since there were no seriously damaged houses to show, he led off his article with this picture:

This is the 264-year old Taylor Grist Mill located in Readington, NJ, with a portion of its front wall partially damaged by the earthquake. But if you expected this article to inform you about this mill's history, the extent of its damage and what it will take to restore it, you were sadly mistaken. It contained exactly one sentence about the mill, a perfect example of journalistic bait and switch.

No matter. I had the Internet at my fingertips and was off and running. I clicked on a bunch of websites and discovered all kinds of interesting things about the mill.  It supplied grain to the Continental Army during the American Revolution and continued to operate into the 20th century. It's on the National Register of Historic Places. It's part of the Taylor's Mill Historic District, and a bridge leading to it within the District was recently replaced in 2006.

Wait.  Hold on. What was that?

That last fact caused my trip down the rabbit hole to come to a screeching halt. I was suddenly reminded of another historic bridge under repair that my wife and I came across while bird-watching in New Hampshire. But where, exactly, was that bridge? When were we there? Did I take a picture of it? The rabbit hole continued, but it had veered onto a brand new path. After a painstaking search through my iPhone photos, I found the picture below, taken on September 1, 2022:

Close scrutiny of the sign at the top of the bridge revealed that it was located in Ossipee, New Hampshire. The game was once again afoot!

I learned that it is a type of bridge called a Paddleford truss bridge and that it was built in 1870 after a prior bridge had been washed off its abutments by a flood in 1869. It is named for the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who spent his summers in a hotel nearby. I learned that, at 132 feet, it is one of the longest covered bridges in New Hampshire and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. 

But that's not all. I also learned that, a few months after I snapped my photo, the Whittier Bridge was moved back on its abutments and opened to pedestrian traffic only. No motorized vehicles of any kind are permitted on it. And then, unexpectedly, the rabbit hole hit rock bottom, landing upon the article below from the Conway Daily Sun. Once I read this story, I knew I was done, a fitting end to my quest.  

It's a JPG file (in case the original web page goes away), so you have to click on it to read. It's a tad long, but its insight into life as a local New Hampshire politician was  unexpected, somewhat amusing and, ultimately, stunning.  

The King of Beers

 

My wife drinks a lot of water. It has to be lukewarm, though, so there's always a pint glass full of water waiting for her on our kitchen counter. She's been doing this for decades, but I couldn't have told you at gunpoint what was written on any of the glasses she uses.

All that changed this morning. After she drained her glass of water she exclaimed. "Hey, there's something written at the bottom of this glass ... it says 'King of Beers'!" I looked over and saw that she was holding one of our two Siena College souvenir beer glasses (shown above). Lord knows when or how we got them. We certainly didn't get them when we attended the school in the 70's. Pint glasses – and Budweiser beer, for that matter – were a bit too fancy for our on-campus Rathskeller, aptly known as "The Rat". As I recall, we drank Schaefer or Genny Cream out of plastic cups. Those pint glasses must've been a giveaway at a Siena reunion many years ago. 

To be honest, I never looked closely at these glasses and rarely used them. I'm not a Budweiser drinker and all of their garish advertising overpowered the Siena logo. At any rate, I peered into the bottom of the glass and, sure enough, there was something etched down there:

I looked closer.

If you click on the photo above you'll see that not only is "King of Beers" etched on the bottom, so is a map of the world! Well, sort of. North and South America are portrayed pretty clearly, and Europe is positioned somewhat correctly, but what the hell are those land masses to the east of South America? Australia and New Guinea? It's tough to say. All I know is that someone went to a lot of trouble to create that etching, and it made me wonder why. So off I went down another Internet rabbit hole. As luck would have it, it was a very shallow hole, requiring only a single search:

"budweiser" "king of beers" "map" "glass" "bottom"

It led me to a discussion on Stack Exchange on the purpose of etchings on the bottom of beer glasses and introduced me to the key term: "nucleation point". After bouncing around a couple of craft beer sites, here's the gist: The etched pattern on the inside bottom of a glass is called a nucleation point. When beer comes in contact with it, it causes carbon dioxide bubbles to be released. Among beer aficionados, a steady stream of bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass is highly desirable as it aids in head retention and provides enhanced aroma. 

There you have it. So the next time you stop into your local bar for an $8 pint of beer, don't just get it in any glass. Tell the bartender, "I'd like that in your finest nucleated glass, if you please." You might as well get your money's worth.

Wordle, the New York Times and Newspeak

 

On January 31, 2022, the New York Times announced that it had purchased the rights to a cute little word-playing game called Wordle that had become an international sensation. My first thought was, "Oh no, the Times is going to ruin it. They'll put it behind a paywall or throw advertisements around it." Which was kind of sad because many friends and family members were playing it and it had become a daily source of entertainment, especially the trash-talking. Little did I know what the New York Times would do to it.

My first inkling of their incompetence occurred on February 15th. In their haste to cut over from the old version on a UK server to their version on a NYT server, both servers were active. Inexplicably, if you connected to the UK version, the word of the day was AGORA. If you connected to the NYT version, the word of the day was AROMA. This should have immediately set off an alarm bell in my head. After all, the true genius of the game is how simply it is constructed. Its code contains the entire database of words that can be used for answers, and each answer is linked to a specific date. As such, the only way that the two versions could yield different answers is if the list of possible answers had been altered. And that's exactly what had happened.

By an astounding coincidence, the first Wordle word of the NYT era was AGORA, a word that is pretty obscure to the average American. As such, the NYT decided to eliminate it from the list of valid answers and the word AROMA (the next word on the list) was used instead. While they were eliminating words, The Times also decided to get rid of words with British-specific spelling like FIBRE, which also seemed reasonable.

Then, they went berserk. 

Someone managed to convince the powers that be that "sensitive or offensive" words needed to be eliminated too. Words like SLAVE, WENCH, WHORE and LYNCH. Not only would these words never appear as answers, they would not even be accepted as guesses. Ironically, all of these words can be found in articles written by the Times!

With this in place, imagine your frustration when you're in mid-Wordle and the consonants W, H, and R are still in play along with the vowels E and O. Maddeningly, you'll be unable to guess WHORE.  Almost certainly it wouldn't be the correct answer to the puzzle but it would greatly improve your chances of winning on the next guess. 

But that's actually the least objectionable aspect of this.

When a friend of mine heard about this, he sent me a one-word text: Newspeak. If you're unfamiliar with the term it probably means you've never read "1984", the classic novel by George Orwell. Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, a totalitarian regime, and was used to restrict ideas, thoughts and communication. As an example, Newspeak didn't have a word for freedom, so the concept of freedom didn't exist either. Negative words were replaced by words preceded by "un-"; the word "bad" became "ungood". Orwell's warning: a government that creates the language and mandates how it is used can control the minds of its citizens.

The NYT is hardly a totalitarian regime. But it was dabbling in a bit of Newspeak when it decided to eliminate a perfectly valid collection of non-obscene words from our thought process. Yes, enslaving someone is objectionable, but knowing about slavery, being able to converse about slavery or being able to joke that you are a "slave to your job" is perfectly reasonable. Calling a woman a "bitch" might be harsh but commiserating with someone by saying "life's a bitch" is hardly objectionable.

By calling these words "insensitive or offensive" and eliminating them from being used in a silly little word game, the NYT gave credence to all of its detractors who constantly accuse them as being absurdly politically correct. 

Postscript:

The above Letter to the Editor was never published by the New York Times. In fact, I never got any response whatsoever from the Times. So, as promised, I canceled my subscription on February 23, 2022. But I wasn't able to unsubscribe simply by email. The Times made me interact via chat with an individual labeled as "steven". Our exchange (edited for brevity) can be read by clicking here.

 Just as I had hoped, my bold and courageous stance against Big Brother-like censorship had made an immediate and undeniable impact:

It's not important that their stock price rebounded to 43.99 less than a week later. My point had been made.

The Griffin Shinemaster

This morning I "offered" to polish my wife's black work shoes. (Actually, she kind of left them in the middle of the bedroom floor and I took the hint.) All of our shoe-polishing gear is contained in a family heirloom that I somehow inherited in the late 80's after my parents died and the house was sold. As shown above, this heirloom is a small, oak shoe-shining box with a label on it proclaiming it to be a Griffin Shinemaster. I have very few clear memories of my childhood but whenever I use the Shinemaster one memory always springs to mind. Today I decided to write that memory down for posterity.

Back in the early 60's, my father used to work at IBM. That meant that he had to get dressed up in a suit and a tie every day and put on a pair of dress shoes. Starting when I was about 7 years old, my brother Tom and I were given the weekly chore of polishing his two pair of dress shoes in the basement. As I recall, they were both black wingtips, which would make sense since I'm pretty sure my father wore a light grey suit to work every day. One pair might've been brown, but I digress. The point is that Tom and I shared the chore of polishing our father's shoes.

Tom was a year and a half older than me and big and strong for his age. I, on the other hand, was pretty small and weak for my age. As expected, Tom beat me in virtually everything we did together, whether it was wrestling on the floor, riding a bike, playing tag, flipping baseball cards, throwing a ball or playing pool. My father was undoubtedly aware of this. When we had finished shining his shoes he used to inspect them to see who did the better job. He always praised both our efforts but, somehow, always found a way to judge my shining job to be a little bit better.  

I forgot to mention that Tom was also very smart. He soon realized that the game was rigged and hatched a plan. One week, after completing our shining chore, he convinced me to switch shoes with him before we came up from the basement. Rube that I was, I agreed. When my father once again judged the shoes I held to be shined slightly better, Tom let out a cry of victory,. He turned to me and said, "See?? He always picks your shoes!" I don't remember how my father reacted, but I felt a little sorry for him. Even worse, I felt that I had let him down. I don't remember him judging our shoe-polishing efforts ever again.

Postscript:

While I couldn't find anything conclusive on the web, I'm making an educated guess that the Griffin Shinemaster was a product of Griffin Shoe Care, a company founded in 1890 in Brooklyn, NY. Their web page claims that they "went on to revolutionize the shoe shine industry by inventing products such as liquid shine and the shoe shine box." Inventing the shoe shine box is a pretty bold claim, one that you would think their website would go at length to prove, possibly with a copy of the actual patent. Sadly, Griffin Shoe Care offers no proof whatsoever. Even worse, although their website advertises a host of shoe care products and shoe accessories, there's not a shine box to be found.