August 3, 2025, Sunday morning
Good morning.
We witnessed part of the circle of life: a birth, my son and daughter-in-law’s baby girl, born February 1, Svea Josephine Heyl Engstrand. Svea = female Swedish name that means “of the Swedes.” Josephine = Martha’s beloved sister. Heyl = Martha’s family surname. Engstrand is Swedish = “meadow by a beach.” So the baby is “of the Swedes from a meadow by a beach.” A mouthful but we really like it. One friend commented that she’ll hate the name in K-12 school but she’ll love it in college. Probably right. I’m waiting to hear how she pronounces it once she begins to talk. Here’s a photo of her at 5 months.
I go over to tend
to Svea every Wednesday morning (returning to the house that I lived in for 34
years) so Elliott and Martha can work. At five months old on August 1, she’s
still not quite sure what to make of me. She smiles easily at her parents, at her
grandmother my ex-wife, and at Kathy—but I only get a grudging little smile
once in awhile. Elliott thinks it’s because I’m a male, which could be right. But
she’s perfectly content when I carry her around or take her for a walk in the
stroller or feed her, or change her diaper (yes, I do that), and she falls asleep
on my lap. I assume that at some point she’ll recognize me, and maybe even
smile.
As is my habit in retirement, paint-by-numbers of photos I like, I will likely do one of this photo. Elliott suggested I do it a la Caravaggio, which makes perfect sense.
* * *
I went on at far too great a length about my abdominal surgery last June. So I will not repeat that performance. I went back under the (laparoscopic) knife last August. The abdominal surgery likely provoked a hernia (not that uncommon), so more surgery. This time it was outpatient. Done.
The two surgeries did keep me away from the fitness routine for three months (the surgeons both said “no” when I asked about returning before the end of September), so the two months I’d invested from mid-April to mid-June were sort of wasted. I had to start all over again.
* * *
I quoted Hunter Thompson when I wrote about getting fit.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
The following Facebook meme from a friend is probably a better attitude.
One drawback to having "a good story to tell" is that some of us have a tendency to repeat the story. Sometimes often.
This was *so* true for me for all of my life after 9th grade. Then, for 58 years, I managed to live without PE. Now I have it in my life again. (From a friend on Facebook.)
* * *
A friend of mine pointed out, apropos of circles of friends, that opportunity and personality play big roles. She and I were both in professional positions where we met a lot of different people on a regular basis. If one is extraverted, that's an ideal setting for making a number of friends. If you're introverted, maybe you find another job or you don't care to take advantage of the many interactions. My friend and I are both rather extraverted and came away from our careers with many good friends.
* * *
As several of you know, I sent a letter to the Washington Post. It was not published.
` To the editor:
In 1984 the superb historian Barbara W. Tuchman published The March of Folly. Taking the Trojan Horse as the archetype, Tuchman examined three periods in history when leaders acted contrary to their own and their organizations’ interests. She examined the Papacy (before the Reformation), the British government (before the American Revolution), and the U.S. Government (before the Vietnam War). In each instance, Tuchman contended that the leaders had ample evidence *at the time* that their policy choices and decisions would lead to disastrous outcomes, but they nonetheless followed a path that led to folly.
It is unfortunate Tuchman died in 1989, because she could be writing a new chapter about the U.S. Supreme Court. Rather than serving as a bulwark against an imperial presidency and power-hungry president, through its rulings in recent years, and especially in recent months, the Court has thrown open the gates to dictatorship *in spite of* almost daily evidence that the foundations of the Republic are crumbling.
The Roberts Court will not be treated kindly by history.
And since I wrote it, the Court has continued its folly.
* * *
Kathy and I took a
driving trip through Vermont and New Hampshire last fall and ended in Boston
for a few days. A note or two.
Among other things, we took a funny little train to the top of Mount Washington and visited Ft. Ticonderoga and walked on many paths in many woods.
In our travels we
saw two museums worth a few comments, The Shelburne Museum in semi-rural
Shelburne, Vermont, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Both
were created by millionaire widows who, with their husbands, had collected art
in large quantities from all over the world.
The Shelburne was
founded by Electra Havemeyer Webb, whose father was president of American Sugar
Refining. Her husband was a Vanderbilt grandson. They had a lot of money. Her
parents were avid art collectors, so she grew up with the habit.
The museum has 39 structures spread over 45 acres, so it’s a hike to see everything. The admission is a two-day pass and we used both days. The range of stuff is amazing: American folk art. French Impressionist paintings. Historic New England architecture. Duck decoys, circus animals, and dolls. From everyday American life, furniture, pottery, quilts, weathervanes. But get this: she first established the museum as “a place to preserve her family’s collection of horse-drawn carriages.” Then began the larger collecting. “From the countryside throughout New England and New York, Mrs. Webb found historic buildings that would provide appropriate settings for her collections, and she relocated them to the Museum grounds: houses, barns, a meeting house, a one-room schoolhouse, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, a covered bridge, and the 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga.” I was impressed by the large collection of sleighs; I had no idea there were so many different kinds.
One of the
buildings is a recreation of the Park Avenue apartment the family had owned,
and included are pieces from their art collection (the majority of the
collection went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City). I don’t
know a lot about the prices of art, but given what little I do know, I’d guess
that the small subset of the collection at The Shelburne is worth at least $500
million.
Anyway, an interesting place. I’ve never seen anything like it. I rode a horse on an antique but working carousel.
The Gardner museum
in Boston was established by Isabella Stewart Gardner, daughter of a wealthy New
York linen merchant who married one of the Peabody Boston Brahmins. She and her
husband collected art avidly, including with the help of Bernard Berenson, and
traveled a great deal. Her favorite place to visit was Venice, so after her
husband died in 1898, with an art collection outgrowing their residence, she had
a museum built in the style of a Venetian palazzo. It opened in 1903.
The building—three
floors and many rooms—is filled with art and objects. Stewart Gardner decided
that nothing should be labeled; one should “experience” the pieces. She died in
1924; in her will (one of the docents told us), she stipulated that nothing could
be moved from where she had placed it—and she had placed all several thousand
items—no labels were to be added, and the collection could neither be shrunk
nor expanded. Moreover, if any of these provisions were violated, the entire
collection and the building were to be sold and the money donated to Harvard
University. (Given what Harvard’s going through right now, they might welcome
the money.) So as far as I can tell, the job of the “curator” is to go through
with a dust rag every few days.
I didn’t like this
place. A fascinating building and a fabulous collection, every room jam-packed
with art and objects—and no indication of provenance or significance. There’s a
paper guide, but you’d be there for a century if you stopped at each item and
looked it up in the guide. I like to learn something about what I’m looking at
without taking hours; all you could do here was gawk. There is a docent tour,
but she talked about 3-4 objects in several of the rooms, covering about .002%
of the collection. Great.
In fairness, I
should point out that the museum has a number of outreach programs for the
community, artists in residence, training for teachers, and so on.
There was a theft many years ago at the Gardner. The description of the event from the museum website is worth the short read:
The
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is offering a $10 million reward for
information leading directly to the recovery in good condition of all 13 works
of art stolen on March 18, 1990. The Museum, working closely with the FBI and
the US Attorney's Office, continues to seek facts that could result in the safe
return of the art. A share of the reward is promised in exchange for
information leading to the restitution of any individual work or group of
works.
The
facts are these: In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men in police
uniforms rang the Museum intercom and stated they were responding to a
disturbance. The guard on duty broke protocol and allowed them through the
employee entrance. At the thieves’ direction, he stepped away from the security
desk. He and a second security guard were led to the basement of the Museum
where they were restrained.
Motion detectors recorded the thieves’ movements as they made their way to the galleries. They took several well-known works of art from the Museum’s second floor Dutch Room. They cut Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black from their frames; removed Vermeer’s Concert and Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk from their frames; pulled an ancient Chinese bronze gu, or beaker, from a table; and took a small self-portrait etching by Rembrandt from the side of a chest and removed it from its frame. In the Short Gallery, also on the second floor, they took five Degas works and a bronze eagle finial. They also stole Manet’s Chez Tortoni from the Blue Room on the Museum’s first floor, leaving its frame behind as well.
We were told that the estimated value of the stolen items is at
least $500 million. So my estimate about the value of The Shelburne collection
may be low. Check your art; you may have something on your wall that was stolen
from the Gardner 35 years ago.
The one other “museum”
I found interesting (more so than Kathy) was the Vermont state capitol building
in Montpelier. I put the word museum in quotation marks because it is indeed the
capitol building—but it is also, by description and practice, a museum, open to
all. About 1/4 the size of the Minnesota capitol. We were there at a quiet
time, so we just parked on the street next to the building and walked in. No
guards, no security. There were friendly folks at the front desk almost waiting
to give people a tour, so we took one (had our own tour guide for most of it). “After
nearly 160 years it remains an icon in Montpelier, the smallest capital city in
America. Its House and Senate chambers are the oldest active legislative halls
in the United States that have preserved their original interiors.”
It was a fun little
tour with an enthusiastic guide.
Neither Kathy nor
I had spent any time in Boston as tourists, so we did the usual tourist drill:
saw the U.S.S. Constitution and took the guided walk on the Freedom Trail. The latter
was very well done, and even though I’ve read a lot of U.S. history, I learned a
number of new things. Which now, of course, I do not remember. Thanks to our
friends Teresa and Ryan for hosting us and for carting us around; they strongly
urged that we not keep our rented car while in the city. Driving in and out of
Boston persuaded me they were right.
As for Vermont and New Hampshire in the autumn, we would move there in a second if for some reason we had to leave Minnesota. It is gorgeous countryside and lovely small towns.
* * *
We went to Florida for three months, as has become our habit. Then we came back to Minnesota in April and have been home since. One event worth recalling: We attended a lecture while in Naples given by a Professor of Music from the University of Miami on the history of the Beatles. The focus was on the second half of their performing career, and what startled me was how close the Beatles were to the Beach Boys. They were friends, they traveled together, and influenced each others’ music. I had no idea. When the lecturer played “Back in the USSR” by the Beatles, however, it became evident: there is a passage in the song that sounds exactly like the Beach Boys (that I had never noticed, duh).
We are well, other than the usual aches and annoyances of getting older.
I hope your summer is going well.
Gary
