11. take a walk everyday

Walking at a conference is no great trick. But "taking a walk" (for fun, health, and peace of mind) rather than merely walking for transportation can take some doing.

The convention center in Chicago doesn't make it obvious, but if you're diligent enough, you can make your way out to a marvelous bike/pedestrian path along Lake Michigan. I highly recommend that as a place to walk during a Chicago convention. I did it twice.

My last day at the conference had no free time. I intended to walk when I got home, but my flight was delayed so that it would be after dark before I got home. So, I walked the airport--all three concourses of Midway (Concourse C is short, Concourse A has the coolest stores).

8. present at a conference

Good news on this front. I found out last week that the proposal I submitted to present at the Missouri Library Association conference was accepted. So, if all goes as planned, I should complete this goal in October.

6. publish in a peer-review journal

Bad news on this front. I didn't win the graduate student paper competition I entered--the date has passed when I would have heard had I won. On a positive note, this means I can do the project more on my own time schedule.

4. get a job

I did two interviews and talked with someone from a third institution about an opening during the American Library Association conference last weekend.

14. go to library conferences and workshops

I went to the American Library Association conference in Chicago last weekend. That's the biggest U.S. library conference of the year--over 25,000 attendees. When Barak Obama spoke at the Opening Session, the first thing he did was look over the audience and say "that's a lot of librarians!"

32. watch more movies

Herbie Fully Loaded

I took my movie buddy to see the Love Bug (but I don't think they ever called him that). I'm sure he liked Star Wars better, but he was a good sport about it. It was especially fun for me since I've been watching so many races this summer.

36. learn about wikis

I added a page (my conference schedule) to the unofficial ALA conference wiki. I also edited two pages, adding my schedule to the Attendee Schedules page and my blog to the Conference Bloggers page.

The only problem I had was that I couldn't see my name on the Attendee Schedules page. Meredith advised me to clear my cache and that did the trick! Otherwise, it was easy.

25. catch up reading professional journals and magazines

I read my entire backlog of American Libraries--motivated by the American Library Association conference this weekend.

4. get a job

I just completed the latest draft of my resumé (Word doc). Feedback welcome!

3. Read 30 books in 2005

11 down, 19 to go.

The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood.

This novel is about J.J. Smith, Keeper of the Records. He validates world records for a book like the Guinness World Records, but in this novel, it's The Book of Records or, simply, The Book. J.J. goes to a small town in Nebraska to verify that a man is eating a 747 airplane. There begins an unlikely love story. To quote Fannie Flagg from the book jacket, "I laughed all the way through and cried at the end." What fun!

14. go to library conferences and workshops

I just signed up for the MCDC Training Conference - 2005 to learn all about census data. In particular, I'll be taking the workshops "Accessing Data on the Web" and "Introduction to GIS."

4. get a job

I signed up with the Placement Service at the conference I'm going to next weekend--the big annual conference for librarians. And I sent messages through the Placement Service software to people with jobs posted that I might be qualified for. I've received one polite rejection (not enough experience) and made one appointment for an interview. I can handle a 50-50 success rate for this.

32. watch more movies

Took a young friend to see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. Or maybe he took me, since this was the 4th time he's seen it. Visually stunning. But the only character I could bring myself to care about was R2D2 and it wasn't on the screen enough to keep the story interesting for me.

3. read 30 books in 2005

10 down, 20 to go

Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America by William Souder.

This was my Chautauqua book because Audubon was one of the featured characters. I saw Richard Johnson portray him twice, once at the evening session and once at a school program. It turned out that I spent so much time going to sessions that I only read about half of it last week. But today was my recovery day and I was able to finish it.

The book takes readers on Audubon's amazing journey through the natural world of early 19th century America, particularly Kentucky and Louisiana. We see unimaginably large flocks of Carolina parakeets and passenger pigeons. We wait on the edge of a cliff for an enormous eagle that Audubon eventually calls Bird of Washington and Souder makes an almost convincing case may actually have existed and is not, as is generally supposed, a case of misidentifying the juvenile bald eagle. We learn how Audubon posed dead birds in lifelike positions as models for his drawings. The latter part of the book, and Audubon's life, is somewhat less adventurous (although he still manages some wilderness travels) but contains fascinating details about producing Birds of America, Audubon's famous work.

28. attend a Chautauqua

Today I am 43 years old and one month and I get to check off my first "thing." Attending a Chautauqua is well worth doing.

Part of my enjoyment came from returning to my hometown and being part of the community. But I also think it would be rewarding for someone on vacation in a new place. For example, Heartland Chautauqua goes to Osage Beach this week, the largest resort community on the Lake of the Ozarks. Tan-Tar-A is a favorite place of mine. I could definitely imagine a delightful week staying at Tan-Tar-A and attending Chautauqua events. So, if you get the chance, attend a Chautauqua!

28. attend a Chautauqua

An Evening with George Washington Carver

I went to two of Paxton Williams' programs this week about George Washington Carver as an artist and teacher so I've become pretty familiar with the life and times of Dr. Carver. But I still learned new things tonight and was able to pull together for myself a good chronology of his life.


Dr. Carver was raised by Moses and Susan Carver who had owned, as a slave, George's mother. The Carvers cared so much for George's family that when the infant George, his sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders, they hired a soldier to track them down. Only George was found. After the war, the Carvers raised George and his remaining brother who had not been kidnapped as their own.

The kidnapping left George a sickly child. "Aunt Sue," as young George called Mrs. Carver, taught him to clean, sew, and tend a garden. People around Diamond Grove, Missouri noticed that he was good with plants. Aunt Sue also taught George to read and write, but he was unable, because of his race, to go to the school there.

To get more schooling, he went to Neosho, Missouri where another family took him in as long as he did well in school and helped out around the house. He called the woman of that household, "Aunt Mariah." He remembered many bits of advice from Aunt Mariah, including:

• find a cure for any ailment in nature


• lift as you climb


• go to church

From Neosho, he ended up in two different towns in Kansas. In one, he saw a man lynched, an incident that haunted him the rest of his life. In the other, he finished high school. After that he was accepted into Highland College in Kansas but was turned away from the door when they discovered he was black.

From there he homesteaded, worked as a chef in Iowa, studied art at Simpson College, and studied agriculture at Ames before taking the job at Tuskegee Institute that became his career and his life.

Tonight, our George Washington Carver said about racism that America is a bountiful nation, but it is also a wasteful nation. We throw away clothes that are out of style and plants that aren't growing precisely where we want them. We throw away people sometimes, too. We can make better use of our resources whether they are material goods, food items, or the minds and spirits of our citizens.

28. attend a Chautauqua

The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe

We had a small group but a long conversation for Bill Worley's last talk--this time less on Fred Harvey and more on the railroad whose passengers Harvey served.

The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad system began as simply the Atchison and Topeka in 1859 and was envisioned as a Kansas railroad. Before any track was laid, the vision, and the name, changed to include Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The first track wasn't laid until 1868 (the Civil War taking place in between). The first track went from Topeka toward the southwest. It wasn't until the 1870s that the track went east to include Atchison and Kansas City.

In the 1880s, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe built west from Albuquerque into California. There was a lot of competition in railroads at that time in California and it took legislation from the state of California to allow the Santa Fe to build there.

In the 1880s, the Santa Fe also built tracks east from Kansas City to Chicago. The California destinations and Chicago were reached the same year--1887. At this point the building phase of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad was basically complete.

The Santa Fe advertised travels to the Southwest and California. The logo (a blue cross in a circle) is an adaptation of a southwest Native American symbol. The china on the dining cars was designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and resembled designs on Southwest tribal pottery. Travel posters frequently included artwork with California or Southwest scenery. The Santa Fe Railway Artwork site has some nice examples.

Unlike most passenger rail service, the Santa Fe did make money carrying passengers most of the time from the 1890s through World War II. Advertising and service apparently made the difference.

28. attend a Chautauqua

Women's Suffrage and Mary Lease

The most famous people associated with the women's suffrage movement died before the 19th amendment passed in 1920. Mary Elizabeth Lease, however, lived into the 1930s. When she was interviewed at the time that the suffrage amendment passed, she said:

The seed we sowed in Kansas did not fall on barren ground.

28. attend a Chautauqua

An Evening with Fred Harvey.

Chautauqua goers braved a stormy night for tonight's program, An Evening with Fred Harvey. I have been to two of Bill Worley's daytime programs this week to learn about the Harvey House menus and the Harvey Girls, but I still managed to pick up new bits of information about what rail travel was like at the turn of the 20th century and what working for the Harvey company entailed.



After teaching us how to set the table, Fred Harvey informed us that, if we were Harvey Girls, we would have to be prepared to serve 16 people their four-course meals in 25 minutes. But it is our job to insure that the customers do not feel rushed.

Guests were seated immediately upon arrival and an order taker was right there to take the order. The guest ordered an entree and a beverage. The appetizer, dessert, and other side dishes were determined from the entree.

The beverage was poured by another Harvey Girl, so the order taker had to leave a signal to indicate the beverage. An upright coffee cup meant "coffee." An upside down coffee cup on the saucer meant hot tea and the orientation of the cup's handle indicated whether the customer requested black, green, or orange pekoe. An upside down cup propped up on the side of the saucer signaled "iced tea." An upsided down cup on the tablecloth indicated milk. This all worked well--unless the customer played with the cup. But any confusions would be quickly addressed by the beverage pourer.

The Harvey standard was to provide the finest meals with the finest service anywhere--not just on the railroad lines, but anywhere in the world. The ingredients were shipped by refrigerated freight car and were the best available from the bounty of America--the best beef from Kansas City, the best produce from California. Fresh local ingredients were also utilized. Menus varied from stop to stop all the way across the West so a traveler was offered a variety of food during his or her trip. A four-course meal in the early 1880s cost fifty cents, by the late 1880s it had gone up to seventy five cents.

28. attend a Chautauqua

How to Educate and Motivate the Dr. Carver Way!

Dr. George Washington Carver was known as a great teacher, one of the most admired at the Tuskegee Institute.

Here are three aspects of his teaching success:

• interest in his students as individuals


• excitement about his own work and sharing it with others


• combining theory with immediately applicable practicality

When Carver worked with groups of people, including in the classroom, he tried to identify shared goals so that the group could determine how to accomplish them together.

He believed in starting teaching from what the students and farmers knew and was always careful to ascertain their current level of knowledge before proceeding with a subject. In some cases, this meant "unteaching." A superstitious farmer thought that killing the chicken that had been born under the full moon would cure the problems in his hen house. Dr. Carver determined that re-orienting the coop so that it received some sunlight each day would work much better.

Carver found that it was often better to teach by showing rather than telling. He started experimental farms to demonstrate his techniques.

Since I expect to teach as an academic librarian, I was very much looking forward to this program and believe that some of these techniques would work quite well for information literacy instruction.

28. attend a Chautauqua

Glenna Wallace's presentation on Mary Elizabeth Lease this afternoon took place outside the Pike County Courthouse in Bowling Green. The County Commissioners found her a stump to stand on. She wasn't planning to present in character, but being a good sport, she stepped up on the stump anyway.



Mary Elizabeth Lease was, indeed, a stump speaker. Today's presentation was about the many ideas that she and the Populist Party had that were eventually implemented--although everyone thought Lease was crazy when she brought them up in 1890.

The railroad monopoly hurt the farmers and in 1906, the commerce commission was given regulatory powers to make the railroad more of a public service.

Women's suffrage was not a primary goal of Lease's, but it was important enough to her that she quit the party when the first act of a new party blending Populists and Democtrats (the Fusionists) was to drop the women's suffrage plank from the platform.

Like most women active in politics in the late 19th century, Lease started as a temperance activist and continued to discuss it during her career. Prohibition came in with the 18th amendment, only to be repealed later.

Lease and the Populists advocated for a graduated income tax which eventually came to pass as an amendment to the constitution. They also wanted a direct election of Senators--this also happened by amendment.

28. attend a Chautauqua

Do You Like Birds?

This was the first daytime program I went to where the speaker assumed the role of his character, Richard Johnson became John James Audubon. That worked well for a kids' program at the Bowling Green schools.

Audubon told the kids what his life in France had been like at their age. His mother had let him run wild in the woods instead of going to school. But when his father, the sea captain, came home and discovered that he hadn't been learning to read and write, the boy was sent to military school.

Then Audubon shared his love of birds, starting with a stuffed robin that sang like a robin. A few kids could identify the bird just from the song and the rest knew it when they saw it.

The kids also recognized the crow puppet and were able to tell Audubon that it said, "caw." They seemed surprised to learn that in crow language, that often means, "Watch out! There's a dangerous-looking person!"

Then Audubon showed his pictures. Many of the students could identify the cardinal, flamingo, hummingbird, and owl. About half guessed that the blue jay was a blue bird, but the rest got it right. Several claimed to have seen the snowy white egret--I saw my first one in Pike County at the Ted Shanks Wildlife Area. Many students knew the duck and a surprising number also knew that it was a mallard.

Audubon encouraged the students to observe nature in their backyards, learning outside of school as well as inside.

28. attend a Chautauqua

An Evening with Mary Elizabeth Lease

Tonight we went to a rally for the Populist Party in 1890. The energizing speaker was Mary Elizabeth Lease.


We threw our change on the stage when she said "It's time for a change! Change!" We jeered the Democrats and Republicans--those bloodsuckers. We chanted the populist rallying cry, "Equal justice for all! Special privileges for none!"

Lease spoke extemporaneously but was careful to check her papers for statistics and quotes--so she couldn't be criticized for getting them wrong. She worried about the farmer who only gets 6 cents for corn that sells for 50 cents in Chicago--and for the starving children in Chicago whose families can't afford that. She complained that distillers can borrow money at 2% interest, but farmers must pay 10%. She protested that the masses pay three quarters of the taxes while owning only one quarter of the wealth.

During the question period, when Glenna J. Wallace took off Mary Lease's hat and answered questions as a scholar, we learned that 1890 was the most successful year for the Populist Party, particularly in Kansas. Although, they never gained the presidency or a large number of seats in congress, the Populist Party pushed issues that eventually did make their way into law:

• women's suffrage


• graduated income tax


• usury laws


• direct election of senators


• rural free mail delivery

28. attend a Chautauqua

A Brief History of Chautauqua

The daytime session that I went to today was on the history of Chautauqua. It was presented by Kathryn Ballard, the Artistic Director and Road Manager of the Heartland Chautauqua.

The roots of Chautauqua are in an 1874 workshop for Sunday School teachers that took place in Chautauqua, New York. The teachers wanted further adult education, beyond religious studies. The programming was quickly expanded to include book discussions, lectures, and explanations of the latest scientific discoveries.

The tent was apart of the earliest Chautauqua gatherings because there was no building large enough for the large crowds that attended the evening programs. A tent city was also set up in the area to accommodate people who traveled to the Chautauqua event, including people from the MidWest. When MidWesterners returned home, they wanted to find a way to bring the programming to their communities. With much effort and expense, some managed to engage Chautauqua speakers and use printed material from the Chautauqua Press to simulate the experience in their home towns.

Eventually, a couple of businesses saw the opportunity here. From vaudeville, they borrowed the concept of a "circuit" of performance venues. From the circus and the original Chautauqua, they borrowed the idea of holding events under a tent. The Chautauqua companies provided the tent, stage, crew, posters, and speakers for a week's worth of programming. The local community paid a little money up front and did the legwork of selling tickets in advance.

The first year the Chautauqua circuit had 40 towns. By the early 1900s, there were thousands of towns on the Chautauqua circuit. The citizens of these towns heard speakers on all kinds of topics and from all over the country, including the ever-popular William Jennings Bryan. Some symphonies and other musical groups went on the Chautauqua circuit. These Chautauquas also had tent cities associated with them for farmers who came from longer distances. Chautauqua week was an anticipated and cherished summer event in many towns.

I attended this talk in a nursing home. One of the residents remembered going to Chautauqua every summer in Eolia, Missouri. She said that some of the programs were very good and that "some didn't amount to much."

28. attend a Chautauqua

Reader question.

A reader asked if Chautauqua is the same as the one that Robert M. Pirsig discusses in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I had forgotten that, but found this great site on the topic. Now that I re-read that passage, I think that may have been where I first heard of Chautauqua as well. Pirsig, of course, is talking about the second definition of Chautauqua on my list. The modern revival of the Chautauqua didn't exist until a good decade or so after Pirsig's book was published. I learned today that the modern Chautauqua began with the Great Plains Chautauqua in the 1980s. Missouri's Heartland Chautauqua was modeled on that one and it began 13 years ago.

28. attend a Chautauqua

The setting, a generic large room, was less romantic than the Chautauqua tent, but we were warm and dry for our evening with John James Audubon, the artist who brought us Birds of America. Audubon was portrayed, by Richard Johnson, as a much calmer character than Theodore Roosevelt--I told my brother this on the phone tonight and he said "Well, you would have to be quiet to watch all those birds."



Audubon came to America in 1803 after a childhood in Haiti and France. Perhaps. He was told different stories about his birth and, apparently, didn't mind making up his own versions. He tried to convince us that he could be the lost son of the king of France, but we weren't buying it.

After some early business success with a partner, Audubon was unable to run a mill on his own. Bankrupt and starting over, his wife supported him in his dream to paint and publish the birds of America. He drew the birds life-size on very large paper--the size is called double elephant folio. He aimed for life-like, natural poses, colored exactly in the shades of the birds in the wild.

Unable to find an engraver to print his birds in the United States, Audubon scraped together the money to go to Europe where he was able to find an engraver. The double elephant folio of Birds of America contains 435 engraved plates with 500 species of birds. These folios sold for $1000 in the 1830s and were bought by royalty in Europe, among others. The U.S. government bought copies to use as gifts to visiting dignitaries. Later, Audubon and his engraver produced a quarter-sized version, the royal octavo size, and added 35 more species. This smaller version sold for $100.

Audubon was aware of the abundance of America, both in nature and in opportunity. He recognized that the natural world was being adversely effected by the encroachment of the "white man." During a trip to Labrador where he was unsuccessful in his quest to see the great auk, Audubon noted with concern the devastation wrought by man in Labrador and said that "nature herself is perishing." He knew that some of the species of birds he drew might one day be known only through his art.

Besides the environmental message, Audubon also wanted us to know that because of the abundance of opportunity in America, people can reinvent themselves. Unusual or unknown birth circumstances, bankruptcy, personal tragedies or failures. All of these can be overcome or swept aside in the pursuit of one's dream in America.

11. take a walk everyday

This was a challenge today. I had a great plan--go to the three daytime Chautauqua sessions and then take a late afternoon walk before the evening program. That plan got washed away when a thunderstorm roared through during the afternoon session and lingered. Hard to complain, though, because we need the rain.

The evening program was moved inside. We were there early, so out of desperation, I started my walk as laps around the room. When I realized that the rain had slowed to a drizzle, I took my walk outdoors and made three laps around the fairgrounds. Not a long walk, but definitely a walk!

28. attend a Chautauqua

Our third daytime program today was, again, by Doug Mishler. This time we focused on Roosevelt's childhood in a program called "Youthful Nature: Young Theodore Roosevelt as a Naturalist."

The first extant letter by Theodore Roosevelt was to his father and it described the markings and behavior of birds. The first essay we have by Roosevelt contained two pages of observations of an ant. These were both written when Theodore was seven years old.

Young Roosevelt started the "Roosevelt Natural History Museum" in his bedroom with a skull of a seal that a local merchant gave him. Theodore had wanted the whole carcass, but his parents had not allowed that. Roosevelt paid other children for specimens. He eventually boasted a collection of 2000 items, many of them alive with a habit of escaping into the rest of the house. When the maid refused to clean Theodore's room, his parents found another location for the Roosevelt Natural History Museum.

He learned taxidermy as a teenager from John Bell who also worked with John James Audubon. By the time Roosevelt went to college and his parents insisted that the museum be disbanded, his collection was so good that he donated some 600 items to the Smithsonian and 400 to the Natural History Museum in New York City.

28. attend a Chautauqua

For the second day in a row, we had lunch with a program about Fred Harvey, presented by Bill Worley. Today, the food was worthy of the Harvey House, provided by a caterer. This Chautauqua program was held in conjunction with the Red Hat Pikers meeting and was the largest crowd for a daytime session we have seen yet--many of the attendees were women wearing red hats and purple shirts.

The title of the program was "The Harvey Girls--More than Judy Garland."

We learned that, originally, Harvey House lunch rooms and restaurants, like most at the time, were staffed by men. But they had trouble with men in the small railroad towns in the west--they would go out with the cowboys on Saturday nights and be unfit to work on Sunday mornings. One of the managers had the idea to hire young ladies and train them well. Fred Harvey liked that so much that a few days later he was running an ad for attractive, intelligent, educated women between the ages of 18 and 30.

The classic uniform of the Harvey Girl was a black blouse, black skirt, black shoes and stockings, and a full white apron. The skirt was loose and the hem was 8" from the floor--long enough to be decent at the time and short enough that the women could move quickly as they served passengers during the 30-minute meal stop. Except for the shoes and stockings, the attire was provided and cleaned by the Harvey company.

Harvey Girls signed a 12-month contract. The penalty for breaking it was half pay, but some women broke the contract in order to marry men that they met in their travels. A Harvey Girl who stayed for the entire year was given a bonus, a week's paid vacation and free transportation to anywhere on the railroad line.

The Harvey Girls slept dormitory style in either an adjacent rooming house, in rooms above the train depot, or in back rooms of a Harvey Hotel. Their comings and goings were tightly controlled and curfew was imposed by a matron. This was not only to protect the reputation of the Harvey Girls but also to convince their parents that their daughters would be safe in this career.

The pay for being a Harvey Girl was $17.50 per month plus room and board. They also got to keep tips so the best jobs were on the main lines where the women might serve as many as six meals a day to train passengers. In the busiest locations, the Harvey Girl could double her salary with tips.

28. attend a Chautauqua

The first of three daytime sessions today was at the Middle School. We had the usual handful of adults along with about 50 summer school students ('tweens). Fortunately, the topic was "Theodore Roosevelt Adventurer" so our presenter, Doug Mishler, told exciting stories about hunting, exploring, a bar fight, and gross injuries to keep the students entertained and interested.

Theodore Roosevelt's wife, when asked which of her six children were the most troublesome would say that her husband was like a seventh child, and he caused the most trouble. It was Theodore who recognized that the new carpeting on the back stairway in the White House was slick and that the sterling silver tea tray, a gift from the Queen of England, could be put into service as a toboggan.

Roosevelt loved to hunt, but believed it was only sporting if one waited to shoot when within 50 yards of the beast. The best sport was when the hunted had a good chance to kill the hunter. Theodore Roosevelt was very nearly killed by a lion in Africa--his son shot it within 10 feet of Roosevelt.

When Roosevelt was in his 50s he joined a team to explore an uncharted river in the Amazon rain forest--knowing this was likely his last great adventure. He experienced the attack of vicious bugs, a life-threatening injury to his leg, and piranhas. The students were most interested in the piranhas, fish that Roosevelt described as ugly and evil but pointed out that they tasted pretty good if you cook them right.

28. attend a Chautauqua

The daytime sessions at Chautauqua have been lecture or discussion formats. Tonight was my first evening at Chautauqua and it is a show. The scholar-actor presents a one-man, or one-woman, play as the historical character he or she is portraying. Tonight we were entertained by the exciting stories of the vigorous Theodore Roosevelt, as played by Doug Mishler.


My mother noted that many of the problems that Roosevelt discussed from nearly a century ago, continue to be present now (I suspect this may be a theme of the week):

• environmental issues


• the plight of the American farmer


• the bullying role of big business in politics

Theodore Roosevelt wanted to convince us that the values of rugged individualism and self reliance are the core of the American spirit. To cultivate that spirit we need wild spaces and animals and we need to save them for future generations of Americans.

After the play, Theodore Roosevelt took questions. We learned that the Teddy Bear was, indeed, named after him. He had refused to shoot an injured, treed bear--a story that made the newspapers. When asked by a toymaker if a stuffed bear could be named after him, Roosevelt granted permission. He expected the release of the "Theodore Bear" and was none to happy with the name "Teddy," a name he did not allow anyone to use after his mother died.

At the very end of the evening, the actor removed his wig and mustache and took questions as Doug Mishler, no longer in character. My favorite question came from Elizabeth Wills, who immigrated from Germany after World War II, about Roosevelt's attitude toward immigration. Mishler said that Roosevelt gets something of a bad rap regarding that because he detested the concept of the hyphenated American. Americans shouldn't be Irish-American or German-American, they should be 100% American. This was a concept that Elizabeth could support--I've heard her say similar things.

28. attend a Chautauqua

Cooking with Fred Harvey

Fred Harvey, represented this week by Dr. William Worley, established restaurants, hotels, and dining cars along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe rail lines, beginning in 1876. At that time, there was no good food available for railroad passengers west of Chicago. Most of us these days probably associate Harvey with the Judy Garland movie, The Harvey Girls. I'll be hearing more about that later this week.

Our lunchtime program today was about The Harvey House Cookbook. Actually, when Fred Harvey was alive, there was no cookbook. He hired the best chefs around, in one case luring the chef from the Palmer House in Chicago to a tiny town on the railroad in Kansas. With the second generation of Harveys, some of the recipes became more standard throughout the company. Dr. Worley read some recipes from The Harvey House Cookbook, compiled about a decade ago from recipes originally published in a railroad newsletter and a Harvey House magazine.

Many of the recipes had fancy names, most of which I'm sure I didn't spell correctly in my notes:

• beef rissoles


• breaded veal cutlet zegaray, which included 2T of chopped tongue as an ingredient


• chicken masielle, a recipe considered so special at the Kansas City Union Station's Westport Room that a gong was rung every time it was ordered


• spaghetti en casiati, which included cooked cockscomb, primarily for its food coloring attribute

The jellied chicken recipe included this piece of helpful advice: "there is a cup full of stiff gel in a pair of chicken feet."

Many of the restaurants and hotels were in the Southwest United States, so some Harvey establishments served traditional dishes like huevos rancheros and sopapillas.

During the golden age of passenger railroad travel, Fred Harvey was synonymous with good food and good service. The establishments served a wide variety of food, local specialties as well as basic popular items like roast beef and fried chicken.

28. attend a Chautauqua

It takes a community to raise a tent.

First step, unfold the three tent pieces and orient them properly.


Second step, pound in the stakes. That's me on the right in the purple shirt, working really hard. My mother took this picture and the next two.


Third step, lift the side poles so that the two center poles can be carried underneath.


Fourth step, the center poles are pushed up into place.


Finally, the chair brigade sets up the audience seating for the Chautauqua evening events.

28. attend a Chautauqua

My first Chautauqua program was also the first program presented by our speaker, Paxton Williams, who will be portraying George Washington Carver on Saturday night.

The program was "George Washington Carver, Artist." I came up to Pike County in time for this program largely because I didn't know that George Washington Carver was an artist, so the title of the program intrigued me.

Carver was a sickly child, the result of a traumatic Civil War era kidnapping as a baby when he lost his mother. One of his childhood pleasures, then, was drawing and he often drew plants. Carver learned to paint from a neighbor while homesteading after being turned away from the first college he was accepted to when they discovered he was African-American.

Carver also had a beautiful singing voice--high-pitched, likely from the childhood disease of whooping cough. He played several instruments, including the piano. It was his singing ability that first attracted the attention of the couple who were instrumental in getting him into a college that would accept him despite his race.

He first went to Simpson College in Iowa as an art student. An art teacher, Etta Budd, recognized that his paintings of plants indicated a deep understanding of botany that might make him a good agricultural scientist, an easier career for earning a living than artist. As a scientist, Carver also hoped to help the Southern farmer, including the sharecroppers. Carver became the first African-American to attend Iowa State where he eventually served on the faculty.

Carver continued to paint while at Iowa State. When two of his paintings won a local contest, he was invited to a state-wide contest taking place at Cedar Rapids. Lacking money for dress clothes and travel, he resigned himself to missing this opportunity. when his classmates and teachers heard of the problem, they raised the money for him to go. Knowing that he would not want accept it willingly, they "kidnapped" him to a downtown shop to buy the suit and bought the train ticket. The paintings won at Cedar Rapids and went on to win "honorable mention" at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Booker T. Washington lured Carver away from Iowa State to teach and do his research at the new Tuskegee Institute. Carver continued to paint and play music throughout his life. He devised ways to use Alabama clay for making pigment. He raised money for Tuskegee by performing on the piano--playing classical music and spirituals. Later in life, he developed the art of public speaking, being the first black speaker in the U.S. to draw large white audiences.

Paxton Williams made the case that Carver's art informed his science. "To come up with 300 uses for the peanut, you have to be an artist." Much of Carver's research centered on creating hybrids, often of his favorite flower, the amaryllis. Many of Carver's paintings are of that flower.

Like the prototypical artist, Carver cared little about money. His theory was that his creativity in both art and science came from God. As such, he felt no need to profit from it--giving away his paintings and claiming very few patents.

Where are the paintings now? Since Carver gave them away, many are in private collections--some present-day owners may not even be aware they own a painting by Carver since he rarely signed his work. Tuskegee has some, although many were destroyed in a tragic fire in the 1940s. Here is one of the smoke-damaged paintings.

28. attend a Chautauqua

Chautauqua:

• a resort town in upstate New York


• a circuit of tent shows at the turn of the twentieth century, kind of a revival for the mind


• a present-day cultural and educational institution in Chautauqua, New York (like summer camp for adults)


• a modern phenomena of cultural and educational programming for summer entertainment, featuring scholar-actors portraying historical characters

I will be attending a Chautauqua of the last variety, the Heartland Chautauqua in Pike County. I think I'll put the Chautauqua Institute on my Life List....

29. organize my finances

Roaring engines propel filing. For the second week in a row, I worked on my big business records management project during an auto race. Not quite a habit, yet, but getting there.

Rick: How's the race?
Joy: I don't know. I'm not really watching it.

This adventure may not turn me into an informed racing fan, but if it gets the filing done, I'll be happy.

2. Be a better blogger

I finally got my 43 Things at 43 blog to appear at the top of my 43 Things page. I thought it was going to involve the "Add your blog" feature under "Edit your account" which meant I would have to remember my Blogger password (heh). But then I discovered I could just put a URL in if I used the "Share more information" section.

17. implement GTD

I put my 43 things into my new system for GTD--Note Studio with the GTD template. I was frustrated numerous times and, once, nearly gave up. Will a system that is not particularly intuitive to me be a system that I can trust? I'm not sure. But I decided that if there was ever a time to attempt a complex implementation, this was it--summer break before getting my graduate degree in December. I won't know if the benefits are worth the complexity until I really work with the system and I may never have more time to fiddle with it than I do now.

Next step: moving the last vestiges of my previous implementations of the system into the new implementation. I'll do this as I go along rather than tackle it all at once.

33. embroider something

I penciled a design on graph paper for the back of the shirt. Next step: start stitching.

Meta: best laid plans

I wondered what would make me change one of my 43 things this year and how soon it would happen. I never guessed it would be as soon as three weeks or that I would have such a nice reason to do it.

I have been invited to participate on a 43 Things team to "Make new friends." Great goal!

But, 43 things is 43 things. I'll have to eliminate something in order to include my new thing. Fortunately, I recently realized that "35. use my PDA more" has been completely subsumed by "17. implement GTD" (see my post on my other blog).

So "35. use my PDA more" is now "35. Make new friends."