The Partly Cloudy Patriot

"...My airport reading material - a novelization of Gettysburg here, a Lyndon Johnson biography there - always receives an approving glance from whatever middle-aged man on my flight is perusing the new Stephen Ambrose book, because every domestic flight requires a middle-aged man with a Stephen Ambrose book in his carry-on luggage - it's an FAA regulation."

The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories. Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolate caffe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the new World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bitter-sweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism serviced with whipped cream on top. No wonder it costs so much."

...Though two of the great Dutch publishers, Jodocus Hondius and Willem Blaeu, refused to buy into the fad, the error was reprinted in many European maps well into the next century. California is an island, for example, on the map illustrating Daniel Defoe's sequel to Robinson Crusoe in 1719. It was a Jesuit, Father Eusebio Kino, who set out to put an end to the rumor, which makes sense considering the missionaries were the biggest victims of the false information, dragging boats they didn't need halfway to Cleveland. Kino made a map in 1701 confirming that California was attached to the mainland, and the mistake was fixed for good in 1747, when Ferdinand VI of Spain issued a royal decree proclaiming, "California is not an island."

"Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know. For me, the spark that turns an acquaintance into a friend has usually been kindled by some shared enthusiasm like detective novels or Ulysses S. Grant."

"Analogies give order to the world - and solidarity. Pointing out how one person is like another is reassuring, less lonely. Maybe those who would compare their personal inconveniences to the epic struggles of history are just looking for company, and who wouldn't want to be in the company of Rosa Parks? On the other hand, perhaps people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks are simply pampered nincompoops with delusions of grandeur who couldn't tell the difference between a paper cut and a decapitation."

"...American history is a quagmire, and the more one knows, the quaggier the mire gets."

"During another war, across the river, in Newark, a writer turned soldier named Thomas Paine sat down by a campfire in September 1776 and wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." In September and October, I liked to read that before I pulled the rubber band off the newspaper to find out what was being done to my country and what my country was doing back. I like the black and white of Paine's words. I know I'm no sunshine patriot. I wasn't shrinking, though, honestly; the most important service we mere mortal citizens were called upon to perform was to spend money, so I dutifully paid for Korean dinners and a new living room lamp."

"...The Emancipation Proclamation is a perfect American artifact to me - a good deed that made a lot of other Americans mad enough to kill. I think that's why the Civil War is my favorite American metaphor. I'm so much more comfortable when we're bickering with each other than when we have to link arms and fight a common enemy."

"Once, headed uptown on the 9 train, I noticed a sign posted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority advising subway riders who might become ill in the train. The sign asked that the suddenly infirm inform another passenger or get out at the next stop and approach the Stationmaster. Do not, repeat, do not pull the emergency brake, the sign said, as this will only delay aid. Which was all very logical, but for the following proclamation at the bottom of the sign, something along the lines of "If you are sick, you will not be left alone." This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, i.e, the crux of the societal impulse. Banding together, pooling our taxes, not just making trains, not just making trains that move underground, not just making trains that move underground with surprising efficiency at a fair price - but posting on said trains a notification of such surprising compassion and thoughtfulness, I found myself scanning the faces of my fellow passengers, hoping for fainting, obvious fevers, at the very least a sneeze so that I might offer a tissue."

As a little girl, I was jealous of Teddy Roosevelt. I did not envy his presidency or his valor on the battlefield. What I wanted was his asthma. Theodore Roosevelt is one of my father's heroes. So when my sister and I were children, Dad would tell us stories about TR's buffalo hunts and the Rough Riders' charge up San Juan Hill. He would tell us how this brave, tough hunter and soldier was born a wheezing New York City four-eyes.

"All little Teddy Roosevelt could do," my dad would say of the asthmatic rich boy, "was stay in bed and read."

"Ew," said my sister.

Sigh, said I. Getting to stay in bed and read all day was what I was shooting for."