Pawpaw Redux

 

The Groves of Academe

   I just wrote about the Pawpaw tree ( in, Edible and Available in Ontario), knowing that the subject of pawpaws is very popular and will attract readers. Overlooked in the sources and references provided were some which were found close by,  along with some actual pawpaw trees! I am pleased that the campus at Western now has some, along with additional sources you should now consult. 

   I happened to visit the campus by bike recently and noted all the construction activity. That led me to search the Western website to see what was going on. That is when I discovered the pawpaw sources and trees of which I was unaware. It appears that the Western landscaping crews are as active as the construction ones. 

   Start with this good article from Western News: "Indigenous Tree Bears Rich History, Culture for Western: Rare Pawpaw Brings Hope For Healthy Ecosystem on Campus," Mari-Len De Guzman, Sept. 30, 2021. Since the article came out at the beginning of the academic year it may have been overlooked. Here are some bits; read the entire piece.

"A new set of pawpaw (Asimina triloba) trees have been planted on UC Hill near the Physics and Astronomy Building recently, in the hopes of increasing the campus’s biodiversity and promoting a healthier natural ecosystem....

The five pawpaws planted this past summer, each measuring about a metre in height, add to the unnumbered pawpaw trees already growing on campus, mostly in the Middlesex College area....

As stewards of the campus landscape, Western’s landscape services plants about 200 Carolinian or native trees on campus each year. The pawpaws were among 203 trees planted this year, including bitternut, black gum and other....

Enriching plant biodiversity across campus is part of Western’s commitment to sustainability outlined in its new strategic plan. Western is also home to thousands of tree species and has been officially designated as an arboretum.

The image above is from the article. Thanks should be offered to Mr. Vanden Huevel and the landscaping crews the next time you visit Western. 

For additional background see: "Planting the Seeds of Sustainability: New and Enhanced Gardens Build on Western's Natural Beauty and Biodiversity," Keri Ferguson, Western News, June 24, 2021. 

The Sherwood Fox Arboretum was established in 1981 and more can be learned about it by clicking on the link provided.  And, even more is offered by the Department of Biology. 

Post Script: 

    Dr. Sherwood Fox was a president of UWO and a classicist as well as a naturalist. I have mentioned him before. You will find him in the post about John Muir since President Fox wrote about Muir's time in Canada. He also wrote about "The Old Grand Bend Cut" and is mentioned in the post about "Parks Along the Great Lakes." He also wrote about the BATS in his Muskoka cottage and the large flocks of PASSENGER PIGEONS which used to exist and President Fox is found in those posts. 

The Bonus:

   The Groves of Academe seems like a suitable subtitle for this post. Doubly so, since it is also the title of one of the most famous 'campus novels.' The son of the author of it taught for years at Western and is now retired.

 

Match Making

Factlet (13)

   This is not about what you think, it is about matches. Back when many people smoked, matches were needed and the line uttered by Lauren Bacall to Humphrey in To Have and Have Not, "Anybody got a match?," was often heard.  One of my sisters had huge glass containers and vases full of colourful matchbook covers. Now you rarely seen them and only infrequently get asked, "Buddy, got a light?"

   I thought of those match-filled days of long ago when I ran across this paragraph which provides the Factlet(s):

"For this tree [Western White Pine], almost exclusively now [c1949], yields us our wooden matches. Formerly they were made from the Eastern White Pine, but as the first growth of that species approached exhaustion, the western species, its closest relative and similar to it in the physical and chemical properties of its wood, began (from about 1914 on) to bear the whole burden of matchwood production. This may not seem a great drain - a match so slight a thing - but remember that twelve thousand wooden matches are struck, by the American people, every second. That makes more than 103 million in twenty-four hours. To produce a year's supply of matches, three hundred thousand mature pines must yield up their lives. If grown to a pure strand, they would cover an area 2 miles wide and 10 miles long."

   I suppose that one could view all of this as "progress" since fewer trees are being cut down to provide matches.  On the other hand, less trees are being used to produce newsprint and that is not good. Trees grow back, but newspapers are unlikely to return, even in digital form.

Source:

   That paragraph will be found on p.38 of A Natural History of North American Trees, by Donald Culross Peattie. It's a much more interesting book than the title indicates. See my post about Peattie. 

   If you are interested in the disappearance of the ordinary objects we grew up with see: Going Going Gone: Vanishing Americana by Susan Jones & Marilyn Nissenson. Among the things that have gone: Bank Checks; Carbon Paper; DDT; Girdles; Men's Garters; Nuns; Slide Rules; Tonsillectomies and Typewriters and Wedding Night Virgins.

All of those topics are covered in the book and I have a copy if you want to borrow it.

Post Script: 

   If you are more interested in the subject of "Match Making," see my post - "Lonely in London."
Remember these?

A Gathering of Kestertons

   I just indicated in my last post, which was my first one in a while, that I have had trouble producing one every day. If I had any readers and they showed up daily they would be disappointed that the blog remained unchanged and soon would stop coming.  I thought that perhaps what I could do to attract an audience of loyal, returning readers is grab short, catchy, bizarre, humorous, happy, or sad items and post them while I worked on creating something original.  When I did so, I would group them under the clever title of,  "A Gathering of Kestertons" so readers would know what to expect and anticipate that the content would be more enjoyable and interesting than something manufactured by the usual author of Mulcahy's Miscellany.

Michael Kesterton and "Social Studies"

   "Gathering" is the collective noun I chose and you know all about them because you have read "A Murder of Crows." "Kesterton" you may not immediately recognize, but if I mention the Globe and Mail column, "Social Studies: A Daily Miscellany of Information", you may recall that he was the compiler of it. It was the first page of the paper which most of us turned to during the period from 1990 to 2013. Short facts, figures and tidbits were offered along with a "Thought du jour." Surely a similar approach by me would lead to a consistent increase in the imaginary Ipsos blogging ratings. 

   After writing all of that, I have decided against proceeding with this project and the first "Gathering of Kestertons", will be the last.  Although Mr. Kesterton is deceased, I now realize it is  inappropriate of me to associate his name with MM, since he would gain little and such an association could actually sully his reputation. As well, it is unfair because Mr. Kesterton would have had to do far more work for most of the period during which he gathered material. Work involving things like reference books, trips to the library and reading extensively, none of which one needs now to do. The Internet has made gathering much easier and the market is already crowded with publications offering listicles and trivia stolen from other publications. Plus, it is so easy I would be inclined to slack off and offer only the material of others and never do any heavy lifting myself.  But, before I go, I might as well say a little more about Mr. Kesterton and his "Social Studies," and provide a few of his examples and, perhaps a some of the ones I would have offered had I proceeded with "A Gathering of Kestertons."

   Mr. Kesterton passed away late in 2018 and Elizabeth Renzetti of the G&M notes that: 
"Mr. Kesterton, who died on Dec. 5 at the age of 72, was the shy, quick-witted writer behind one of The Globe and Mail’s most popular features. By the time Social Studies ended on Canada Day, 2013, Mr. Kesterton had compiled more than three kilometres of arcana, world history, scientific breakthroughs, anniversaries and odd news, such as the time Sophia Loren apprehended a handbag thief."

   The first "Social Studies" I have found is from July 4, 1990 and the items in it are topical ones even for our times. Under the subject of "Waste", figures are given for how much of it is being sent by us to countries in the Third World and how much more Toronto wants to have taken by truck into the third world hinterlands elsewhere in the province. Texans back then were thinking just like Texans now. Under the title "Texas Chainsaw Reasoning" a regulatory official did not think it terribly important to control the sale of the toxic chemical chlordane: "Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people. But they may be dying of something else anyway." Many interesting facts are provided and the tabloids can always be counted upon for attention-grabbing headlines: "Dog Lands Plane After Pilot Has Heart Attack" and "Strange Cult Worships Studebakers.'

   The last "Social Studies" is found on July 1, 2013 and among the facts included are some about the column. It began on June 12, 1990 and "Social Studies" was only to be a temporary title. The difference between "Geeks" and "Nerds" is explained and the last "Thought du jour" was thought by Sir Wilfred Laurier and it still has some relevance for our time - "Canada is free and freedom is nationality."

   I have offered snippets, quotes of the day, headlines of the week, factlets and even the odd apercu, when I didn't have much myself to say and I will likely keep doing so, but I won't gather them under the name of the late Mr. Kesterton.  Here are a few for now.

Funny Quotes: 

P.J. O'Rourke just died and left us some humorous ones: On leaving Maoism behind:
“But I couldn’t stay a Maoist forever,” he wrote. “I got too fat to wear bell-bottoms. And I realized that communism meant giving my golf clubs to a family in Zaire.”
About the difference between "Democrats' and "Republicans" - “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove the crab grass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.”

Funny Names:

There were many in the old Wild West and Bret Harte says nicknames were the beginning of a "rude heraldry." Here are some: Antelope Jack; Albuquerque Alice; Hog-Eyed Nellie; Gunny Sack Bill; Pie Biter Baker; Cemetery Sam; Peckerwood Pete; Catacorners Ketchum, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody. Bartholomew Masterson, thought it wise to change his name to "Bat." He was born in Quebec and if you read the Wikipedia entry for him you will see that he was a very interesting character. For more nicknames: "Trailing the Alias," Waldo Koop, The American West, Jan./Feb. 1977.

Sad Place Names: 

Point No Point, Washington; Dismal, North Carolina; Cape Disappointment, Washington; Little Hope, Texas; Boring, Maryland; Misery Bay, Michigan; Tombstone, Arizona; Dead Horse Bay, New York; Murder Island, Nova Scotia. "14 of the Most Depressing Place Names in North America," Bess Lovejoy, Mental Floss, May 11, 2015.

On Somnambulism:

This story was reported by CP back in July, 1979: (Barrie)- "A man wearing only a pyjama top was found walking along a highway early Wednesday about five kilometres from the motel where he was staying. Provincial police, who picked up the man after a call from a person who found him, said he was sleep-walking. The man was in good shape except for sore feet, police said. They did not identify the man, but said he was from the London-Windsor area." 

On Statues:

Many are now being torn down and in this Reuters story from 1989 we can learn how to profit from such destruction:
"Budapest: Right Hand Man: A museum here had paid 500 (pounds) for the right hand of Stalin which was part of the huge Stalin monument toppled in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. It was sold by the widow of a rector who had it in his Budapest garden as a decoration.
  The Stalin statue, which was 28 metres high, was torn down during the night of 23 October 1965. The fragments were collected as souvenirs. The museum intends to show the right hand in an exhibition next year on the epoch of Hungarian Stalinism."

The Price for a Tongass Tree:

A 180 foot tall Sitka spruce is standing (for now) in the Tongass National Forest where it has been standing for a long time. Here is what it is likely to be worth:
"Even when the top and branches are lopped off, a tree this size would yield at least 6,000 board feet of lumber, said industry consultant Catherine Mater, who assessed the spruce’s potential market value for The Washington Post. It would fetch around $17,500 on the open market."

Another Murder of Crows:     

Mentioned above and written about before, the murder of crows in Burnaby has a rival murder far to the south in Sunnyvale, California. See for proof: "A California City Overrun With Crows Turns to Lasers and a Boombox to Scare Them Away: City employees will spend an hour every night shining green lasers and playing corvid distress calls to humanely harass the birds into leaving, Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 20, 2022. And: "A California City Is Overrun by Crows. Could a Laser Be the Answer? In a move befitting its Silicon Valley setting, the city of Sunnyvale, Calif., will aim a laser at 1,000 birds that have overwhelmed the downtown area during the pandemic," Alyssa Lukpat, NYT, Jan. 17, 2022

Donald Culross Peattie (1898 - 1964)

 

  Mr. Peattie is an interesting fellow and if you are the type of person who enjoys books about nature, and writing that is a bit philosophical and poetic, then you should give him a try. Rather than rely on me and suffer through whatever I am about to write, go directly to the Wikipedia entry, where you will find a list of his books and from it you can determine if you want to carry on. 

  
  He wrote a lot and was quite popular, so used copies of his books are easy to get and if you have access to Western University libraries, you will find about ten. I have sometimes written about university presses and one of them, Trinity University Press, has chosen to reprint nine of his works. Four are pictured above. This Trinity University Press, by the way, is in San Antonio, Texas. One of the books shown is, A Book of Hours, which has 24 essays, one for each hour. Another not shone, An Almanac for Moderns, has a short essay for every day of the year.  I have not read them, but I have a copy of A Natural History of North American Trees.

  The Trinity edition is a paperback consolidation of his two volume work:  A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America (1950) and A Natural History of Western Trees (1953). You will enjoy it if you like a sentence like this: ''Where the deer bound, where the trout rise, where your horse stops to slather a drink from icy water while the sun is warm on the back of your neck, where every breath you draw is exhilaration -- that is where the aspens grow."

   If you do bother now to look at the Wikipedia entry, you may be put off by the brief statement that suggests that Peattie may have written some sentences which could now be considered regressive, in terms of race. It does note, however, that they "were mercifully brief and hardly malicious." I think it highly likely that Peattie was a good man and as proof, here is what his son has to say in the Foreword to The Natural History of Trees:

"Before I leave you to scroll among these leafy pages, I should make some last observations about my father, Donald Culross Peattie, renowned naturalist and acclaimed writer. He worked as hard as any man I know; he was a devoted husband to his life's soul mate, and a caring and thoughtful parent to all his children. But the quality that stands out above all others was his serenity in the face of trouble and the chaos of an unruly planet. The trivia, the selfishness, and the vulgar noise that fills much of our world never shook him, fixed as he was on listening to "the roar of a mountain river, and a higher frailer sound above the churning water, the singing of a forest in the night wind."

Sources: 
  To get his 'new' books: Trinity University Press. 
   If you are interested in the natural history of the Great Lakes area, Peattie wrote: Flora of the Indiana Dunes, a Handbook of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Lake Michigan Coast of Indiana and of the Calumet District. There is a copy in the Western Libraries, probably because a former president of the university Sherwood Fox, was a naturalist as well as a classicist. Earlier I recommended reading Edwin Way Teale and he also wrote about the Indiana Dunes. Those subjects are covered here: Edwin Way Teale and here: Parks Along the Great Lakes.

The Bonus:

  Peattie and his wife spent a few years living in Europe and he also wrote a history of the village in which they lived: Vence: The Story of a Provincial Town, which was also reprinted as Vence-Immortal Village. (I am a careless reader and thought it was 'Venice'.) Western Libraries have a couple of copies. BUT, you can also read it online. I happened to stumble across an American Europhile blogger who now lives in Vence. He decided, for good non-profit reasons to make his copy available and you can read it here: Steve and Carole in Vence: Immortal Village.