November 16
Maybe I am really a trout swimming in circles.
1975
Another beautiful Sunday, sunny and crisp. Laundry is done, the turnovers are eaten, and the Sunday paper distributed all over the living room. I’m looking at a museum internship program in Minneapolis, and various other things. Time to move on, or move up, or somehow change. The only certainty is that I won’t be doing what I’m doing now, next year. Some certainty. And I’ll be 27, instead of 26.
Bob called! Has a new girlfriend, “Bonnie Jean” and he wants to show her off and come to visit, around Christmas. Loverly! It seems funny that I didn’t mention his visit of last June. It was one of the (many) high points of the summer. It was so great to have him around. It may even lie at the root of my problems this fall. I have been thinking about Bob a lot. Friday night/Saturday morning I dreamt that he came to visit. I even hugged him and it felt real. Then I woke up and it wasn’t real and I was so pissed.
I have an image of my life: a trout struggling upstream, hardly knowing why.
Comment 2023
My older brother moved to Canada in 1969, determined not to participate in the war in Vietnam. He is still there, just celebrated his 46th wedding anniversary with Bonnie. Two kids and four grandchildren. We haven’t seen each other since The Before Times, except for Zoom and FaceTime. I miss you all!
1994
It has been a very busy fall. I find myself in the usual November predicament: too much to do, too little time, everything a jumbled rush. There have been very pleasant times - Catoctin (as always), my classes (all three) and watching the kiddos grow and mature. Kiddo 1 worries about popularity and being attractive (ah, middle school) and is active in so many different activities. Kiddo 2 continues to bustle around, enjoying his neighborhood friends, going 60 all day and collapsing at night.
I tell myself I am 45 several times a week, but still don’t believe it. Not long ago I could finesse the age thing with “late 30s, early 40s” and still feel connected to my prime-time thirties. But 45 is definitely middle-aged, unless you are running for President. Especially for a woman. Emotionally and mentally I have never been better. But my body is turning against me. I have gained too much weight, I creak too much, I ache too much. Those are all related, I think. I should exercise more, but I don’t. I should eat fewer sweet and fatty foods, but I don’t. Ho hum.
I wish I had a month to whip this house in shape, but if I had the time, I probably wouldn’t do it.
Well, it’s time to hit the computer and finish my book review.
Kiddo 2 will be 8 on Saturday, and doesn’t believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy anymore. But I think he still wants to.
1997
So far this weekend I have not acquired anything, but I haven’t gotten rid of anything, either. But the weekend isn’t over.
2016
It is official; with fewer than two work days left in North Platte, the number of projects has multiplied to the point that my "rabbit hole" metaphor no longer applies. Clearly, it more closely resembles the underground maze of the native rodent, the black-tailed prairie dog.
Yesterday, I went looking for more information about the "Unitarian Church" shown on an 1875 photograph in the public library, and found myself in the "abandoned room". It is an interesting, rather sad story, of Mrs. E. J. Cogswell, a widow from Lexington, Massachusetts, who somehow decided to move to North Platte in 1868, when she was about fifty years old. In her nearly thirty years here on the High Plains, she established a Sunday school (in those days a means of providing working children with an education), raised funds for and built a hall used for Unitarian services and public entertainment, and taught music and singing. In the mid-1890's in her late 70s, she returned to Lexington, where she died two years later. I am still looking for more information about her life and activities in North Platte, as she seems like a kindred soul.
Here is what I have been able to find so far: Her name was Emily Johnson. She married William Cogswell when she was in her early thirties, and was a childless widow by the time she was forty.
From North Platte and It's Associations (1910) by A. R. Adamson:
“It is worthy of remark that the first Sunday School in North Platte was held in the log school house. The late Mrs. E. J. Cogswell of blessed memory, came to North Platte in 1868 intent upon missionary work. She was a Unitarian, but no sectarian, and willingly co-operated with people of all shades of belief for the moral good of the community. Near the close of that year, aided by Mr. M. C. Keith, Mrs. A. J. Miller and Mrs. Kramph, she had the school room arranged for the reception of scholars to form a Sunday School class, but to the vexation of these excellent women, only three children attended. Mrs. Cogswell, however, was not easily discouraged, and visiting every family in town, in which there were children, she solicited their attendance and was rewarded by having quite a number of scholars. This school was organized as Union Sunday School, and continued for many years.
Up to 1873, North Platte had no hall or suitable place in which to hold meetings or entertainments, and the few Unitarians who had gathered round Mrs. E. J. Cogswell, a missionary of the faith, concluded to erect a building that would serve for a public hall and place of worship. This they did at a cost of $3,300, and it became known as the Unitarian hall. It still stands, battered and weatherworn at the corner of West Fourth and Locust streets, and has passed through many vicissitudes. Unitarianism was never popular in North Platte, and the consequence was, that adherents were few, and funds scant. The American Unitarian Association gave liberal financial aid, and sent several pastors in an endeavor to establish a church, but limited audiences and an uncertain salary were not encouraging and none of them remained long. This small body of Christians struggled along for years, some times with a pastor but more often without, until it became almost extinct. Archibald R. Adamson endeavored to rally local Unitarians who had become indifferent, and succeeded in keeping a congregation together for a lengthened period, but he was the last to conduct services in the hall under the Unitarian banner, for dissension caused disruption, and in 1902 the property got into the hands of a very few who sold it and appropriated the money. It was by Mrs. Cogswell’s unwearied zeal that money was raised to pay for the building, and it is questionable if they who profited by the sale ever contributed a cent. The parties in that deal will doubtless feel small when they meet Mrs. Cogswell “in the sweet by and by”, for it was a poor requital for her devotion and labor.
As already stated, Mrs. E. J. Cogswell came to North Platte in 1868 and organized the first Sunday school. She afterwards engaged in teaching and missionary work, and held religious meetings before there were any resident ministers. She also taught music and singing, and performed funeral services in the absence of a clergyman, and was first and foremost in all enterprises for the improvement of the people. Many friends in the east were interested in her work, and contributed books for her Sunday school, money for the support of the church, and clothing for destitute families. She was always planning to help the unfortunate and suffering, and ready to render service to others. Owing to failing health, she returned to her early home in Lexington, Massachusetts, and after two years of feebleness, died on the 23rd of July, 1897. Her devotion to the Unitarian faith continued to the last, and it is [to] be regretted that the latter days of her life were embittered by the knowledge that her work at North Platte was a failure.”
The author of this book, A. R. Adamson, is the same Archibald R. Adamson mentioned in this story. So back into the prairie dog town I go, looking for Archibald and Emily.
2017
WHY did I agree to review this manuscript? Blah.
2023
I taught my first class since 2017 last night. It’s called Thoreau’s America: Simplicity and Anti-consumption in American Life. The students are all neighbors here at my retirement community, and I know most of them personally. So that was odd and nice. Two of them are quarantined right now, so I managed a Zoom hookup which was - ok. But I hope I don’t have to do it again. I have taught online and hybrid courses, but hardly ever synchronously. Do not like.
At any rate, it is interesting to be teaching this course and seeing my own forays into the Simple Life pop up in the historic entries, such as the November 16, 1997 post. That will probably happen quite a bit. I also used the “prairie dog town” metaphor last night as well. Maybe I am really a trout swimming circles.
2024
Usually I journal in the morning, but it’s 7 PM and I am just getting to it. The last two days have been unbelievably hectic. COVID booster in the morning, then setting up for the craft fair (60 or so items of knitwear) and then the fair itself until 3:30. By the time I got home, the COVID booster was having its way with me. I barely managed to stay up until 9:30, and then had a wretched night’s sleep. Got up and headed to a nearby coffee shop to meet up with a student who graduated in 1993 and was visiting from her home in Turkey. Then back to the craft fair until 1 pm and then I crashed. Took a two hour nap and missed the church auction. But I needed some quiet catching-up time more than the socializing. Much, much more.
