The Relevance of Tallship Training in the 21st Century

Memorial Day is a good day to tell of a most unexpected visitor to Philly this past September. The literature calls it "America's Tallship", the Barque Eagle, and shows it plying the open seas in full sail.

This is what it looked like, docked behind the performance stage at Penns Landing. Specs show the three masts to each be 15 stories high, on a ship 300 feet long. Nice relict from a bygone era, it seemed,

but as we approached, a group of young sailors in military uniform greeted us and invited us on board to have a look around. Their look of happiness and pride seemed too genuine to be a product of disciplined show. And, yes, the ship actually does sail, touring the world, with a mission of training leaders and spreading goodwill.

Why would the Coast Guard train its future officers on a sailing ship built in 1936? Their website explains:

"Because the ways of old still have much to teach. The conditions and situations that you face under sail can’t be replicated either in a classroom or aboard today's modern ships. 

"On board Eagle, cadets find themselves suddenly out of their element. Totally dependent on wind, waves and currents, they quickly learn how these forces of nature affect a vessel. They become skilled in ship-handling, decision-making and meeting unexpected challenges. They learn the importance of crew members working together to handle the ship safely."

With 23 sails and 6 miles of rigging, the ship requires all 55 crew members working in harmony just to come about. Sailing teaches a deep understanding of and respect for the forces of nature and the power of collective action. These are the profound lessons Americans once grew up understanding as part of life, back when we partnered with nature, before we turned most work over to machines, and grew so powerful and isolated from nature that we thought we could dominate and ignore it. Even farmers far from the sea still needed to respect the forces of nature, and bring many hands to the task of raising a barn.

In a sense, the pandemic is reteaching forgotten lessons about respecting the forces of nature and the power of collective action. It's also broadening our understanding of what it means to serve and defend our country. We've learned the hard way that it's not enough to pay a military or build a wall, then pay periodic solemn respect for heroes while the rest of us do our own thing as we please. We're in this together, military and civilians, and will be saved or harmed by the collective sum of our individual actions.

There are a few quirks and ironies to this iron-hulled tallship that should be pointed out. It was built by the Nazis and originally used by them to train sailors, prior to being confiscated by the U.S. as war reparations after WWII. And even though it has half an acre of sails, it still is fitted with a diesel engine that provides about half the power.

Still, I stepped off the Barque Eagle with a deepened pride and sense of connection to those in uniform who on this ship step back into a previous era to learn lessons that continue to gain in relevance as time passes and numbers swell.

Riding the Towpath--South to Brearley House

When fall weather stirs a desire to explore the great outdoors, Princeton is ready with a way to escape cars and claustrophobia along the DR Canal towpath.

We could have lingered at Turning Basin Park on a bench with Ailanthus blocking the view of the canal,

or waited for the porcelain berry to give up its spot on a bench next to the towpath.

The turtles had claimed the best spots for sun bathing.

So we heeded the call of the wide open towpath and headed south, past tupelos admiring their reflection in the canal,

past garlands of Virginia creeper brilliant red.

On a previous ride, we had turned left after a mile and a half, taking the pedestrian bridge at the golf course to head over to catch lunch at Whole Foods.

This time, we forged onward, past swamp forests

and through a beautifully designed underpass, after which the towpath adopts a more open, parklike look.

Every good bikepath should consist of a series of destinations, and the next one on the towpath turned out to be Brearley House, run by the Lawrence Historical Society.

The short spur to Brearley House crosses a broad wetland reminiscent of Princeton's Rogers Refuge,

Some may know Brearley House as the site of the annual New Years Eve Hogmanay celebration, and the bonfire whose flames rise thirty feet before settling down to a deeply glowing mass of hot coals, consuming all regrets from the year just lived.

Their website explains that the house was built in 1761 on the "Great Meadow, a farming and grazing land of the first residents of Lawrence - the Leni-Lanapi People." People don't think of the eastern U.S. as hosting grasslands, but some variations in soil and hydrology supported natural grasslands, augmented by the American Indians' use of fire. Radical alteration of the drainage during the digging of the DR Canal turned the grassland into the extensive wetlands we passed on the way in.

Returning along the towpath to Alexander Road, we got a drink at the canoe livery, and then headed home. Next ride, maybe all the way to the bridge over Route 1, beyond which I hear are even more beautiful, bike-friendly stretches of the towpath.

Hogmanay at Brearley House

Update, 1/1/13: Though the annual Hogmany event is said to run from 6 to 9, the bonfire portion happens in the first hour. When we arrived at 7pm, the bonfire had settled down to a large molten mass of coals surrounded by people. Some were still tossing wads of paper with bad memories from 2012 into the fire. This tradition should last far into the digital age. Sending an email with one's bad memories to bonfire.com just isn't the same, and it's not practical to key bad memories into a Word file and then toss the whole computer into the flames.

The bed of coals was a feast for the eyes, so hot and pure that some of the flames were blue, as if the fuel was natural gas rather than wood.

Wikipedia describes many Scottish traditions associated with Hogmanay, all of which sound more appealing than watching the shallow glitz in broadcasts from Times Square. Didn't see any mention of bad memories being tossed into the fire.

A post at Planetprinceton.com had more photos and details about the annual event.

Original post: Each year, Brearley House hosts a bonfire on New Year's Eve, a couple miles out of town. People encircle the giant fire, keeping their distance in the face of all that heat. From 6-9pm, the fire goes from all flames down to a complex glow of coals. A treat for the eye and the soul, and refreshments are free. The scottish tradition is to write down all your bad memories from the year and throw them into the fire. It's also a chance to check out the 1761 house.

Parking is in an open field next to the house. Take Princeton Pike out of town, then turn left onto Meadow Road. If you reach I-95, you've gone too far.

Philadelphia Story, Part 2--Waterworks

The first post entitled Philadelphia Story, as some readers may remember, was a tragicomic tale of the hazards of parking in the historic district. That drama took place on the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin Bridge, Penn's Landing, Delaware River side of town, where I-95 streams through. That was the only part of Philadelphia I knew until recently, other than WHYY's inauspicious Shadow Traffic reports, which detail the endless permutations of rush hour congestion.

One beautiful fall day last month, some friends introduced me to Philadelphia's flip side, west of the Delaware and just beyond the Art Museum, along the Schuykill River. A google-eyed view of Philadelphia shows the Delaware and Schuykill rivers looking like two sides of a vase, with downtown in the middle. Traveling the I-95 corridor and occasionally straying downtown, one sees only one side of the vase.

To visit the Schuykill River side, then, is akin to getting a glimpse of the far side of the moon.

We owe the lovely vista in this photo to the water pollution that, by the late 1700s, forced Philadelphia to seek a cleaner drinking water supply. The Schuykill River was dammed in 1822, and land upstream was purchased to prevent polluting development.

All that land is now the long and lovely Fairmount Park, with bike trails extending all the way westward to Valley Forge. The impoundment is used for rowing races.

Until 1909, the dammed water passed through a Waterworks, turning big drums that in turn pumped fresh drinking water up the hill to a reservoir. From there it was piped down into the city. All very elegant and sustainable. You can see the whole layout in the photo, just as it once looked, except that the Philadelphia Museum of Art is perched on the hill where the reservoir used to be (upper left), and the downtown in the distance has sprouted skyscrapers.

Inside the Waterworks is a first rate, federally run interpretive center that explores all matters having to do with water. You can learn where wastewater goes after it leaves one's house, how the city is trying to reduce stormwater runoff,

and how the shad that once migrated upstream in enormous numbers each spring to spawn played a critical role in keeping George Washington's troops alive at Valley Forge. (Presumably the dam has fish ladders to allow them access these days.)

Along with the appealing ingenuity and sustainability of 19th century technology was a greater valuing of public spaces, and a belief that beauty and utility can cohabit in architectural design.

All in all there was much to cheer about during this visit--a beautiful public space on a beautiful day, and we found our car just where we had left it.

Philadelphia Story

This is a story of growing affection cut to the quick. The affection, for Philadelphia, happened to inhabit me, nurtured by the slow accumulation of good impressions. There is the creative way the city reconnected to its river, by building parks over top of I-95. There are the gallant old ships at Penn's Landing, which we recently explored on a "pay what you want" Sunday morning. The city's approach to environmental needs like recycling sounds progressive. The tour I took of Independence Hall some years back was unexpectedly moving. And then there's the pleasure of walking through the historic district, and the ambiance of a bohemian cafe on Chestnut Street we keep ending up at.

When friends fly in to Philadelphia Airport, we stop in Philadelphia on the way to or from New Jersey. That's what we did yesterday, to soak up some history, late on a relaxed-seeming Sunday afternoon, before dropping my friends at the airport. I pulled in to a parking space on Market Street, and while trying to make sense of the small print on the signs that explain parking regulations, a man approached me. "Don't pay any attention to the signs," he said. "They never check the parking." His voice sounded friendly and authoritative enough to believe, though in return for providing some local wisdom that could save me some parking meter money, he asked if I could spare a couple bucks for a sandwich. I gruffly said no, and went back to getting what we needed from the car.

As we walked towards the Independence Visitors' Center, my teenage daughter informed me that I had been less than friendly towards the man, and that he had seemed upset afterwards, grumbling under his breath. Yes, I thought, maybe I should have been generous and given him some money on the chance that he was indeed a fine man down on his luck, who likes to help out confused tourists in his spare time. I had entered Philadelphia thinking I was an American interested in my country's history, but the encounter with the street fellow had left me feeling like a caricature: affluent, stingy, indulging in idle curiosity on a Sunday afternoon while others struggle just to get by. My daughter also mentioned that she had left her camera in the car. Doubts about whether I had remembered to lock up, and whether the parking space was legal, caused me to go back and move the car.

I drove down a side street, found what looked like a legitimate parking space, then caught up with my friends at the visitors' center. An hour later, looking for a restaurant, we noticed a parking meter man walking down a street. So much for the street man's wisdom. I went back to check the car only to find that it had disappeared. "Is your car gone, too?," someone asked. Thus began an adventure that led me far from my affection for the city. We concluded that everyone's cars had been towed, rather than stolen, though the distinction would begin to dissolve over the next hour. An initial call to the phone number on the parking sign got an answering machine. No car, and no idea where it could be.

I made haste to the restaurant, where my friends reminded me that they couldn't take a taxi or train to catch their plane, because their bags were in the trunk of my car. By chance, a man out in front of the restaurant knew all about what he called "the towing racket," saying he has a case pending with the parking authority. He gave me the phone number and location of the impoundment.

Returning to the scene of the towing/theft, I found the others preparing to drive to the impoundment. They offered a ride, and explained that they were a church group from Illinois that had come to Philadelphia to install new roofs on the homes of people who had applied for help. Somewhere in the scriptures, surely there is a quote to the effect: "Let no good deed go unpunished." The irony was thick as we drove through a desolate industrial area near Ikea in search of our impounded cars. Adding to the irony was a sign at the entryway to the Philadelphia Parking Authority impoundment, displaying the initials PPA, with the A in the shape of the Liberty Bell. The bell, which we had gazed upon just an hour earlier, was starting to symbolize not freedom defended but liberty taken--with our cars and our pocketbooks.

Now, I am not a great defender of cars, or of car culture. If it were up to me, cars would never have been invented, and we would all be walking or riding bikes to nearby stores, or hopping on trolleys and trains. If there were no cars, there would be no concrete wastelands, no stripmalls, no fast food to make us fat, no car insurance or repair bills to pay, no aggressive towing scams, and a whole lot less chance the world will be destabilized by global warming. Impounding all the cars in the world would have its benefits.

But there was the small matter of getting my friends on to their plane, which was now scheduled to take off in not much more than an hour. My teenager called for frequent updates, as the man behind the counter demanded my driver's licence, license plate number, registration and proof of insurance. I managed all but the latter, which took a long wait on hold to retrieve from my insurance company. On one side of the counter were employees joking among themselves. On the other side were people desperate to get their cars back, and sick at the thought of having to pay hundreds of dollars in towing fees and parking fines in the process.

Mindful that the employees were not the architects of this nightmare, I kept my patience, at least until the very end, when the man informed me that the $150 I had just paid was only the towing fee, and that my additional parking fine could be found in the envelope he had just handed me. "Jesus Christ!!", I blurted, as I steamed out the door to finally retrieve my car. Having heard that one couple there was facing a $250 fine, plus the towing fee, I expected the worst. In retrospect, I interpret my utterance to be a calling out of warning to the son of God, lest he be planning a return that involves parking in downtown Philadelphia.

Thanks to a helpful taxi driver I asked for directions, I got my friends to the airport in time. And the experience proved good fodder for conversation on the drive home, during which my daughters and I discussed the in's and out's of trusting strangers. With a $50 parking fine, I was $200 lighter, and most definitely freed of any guilt for being unthankful to the man on the street for his unsolicited advice. Armed with my new street smarts, I'd guess he gets by on kickbacks from the towing company.

In the heat of the moment, I vowed to deprive Philadelphia of any more of my visitor's dollars, to make the city pay for its rude treatment of well-intentioned people. If I had time, I'd try to find out where all that money ends up, or maybe I'd suggest the Independence Visitor's Center develop a new exhibit: "Shakedowns Through the Centuries."

Tempestuous Music at Pettoranello Gardens

My daughter was bored this past Saturday night, so I checked the calendar at www.princetonol.com, and was surprised to find a free concert of jazz being presented at the Pettoranello Gardens amphitheater. Surprisingly few Princetonians can tell you where Pettoranello Gardens is, fewer still know about its amphitheater, and of those only a small subset are aware of the jazz and other performances that periodically take place there.

You needn't learn how to spell the name, but it helps to know that this lovely spot is just across 206 from the Community Park soccer fields. Turn onto Mountain Ave, take the first right into the paved parking lot, then head downhill past the wooden sign until you reach a pond with a trail around it. The amphitheater is tucked into the berm that shields this oasis from the noise of 206. The calendar of jazz concerts this summer is at www.bluecurtain.org (Note: try https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Curtain/113791645408). There may be other programming as well.

Most every Sunday morning at 8am, volunteers with the Pettoranello Foundation meet at the Gardens to tend to the landscaping, as they have for some 15 years, with help from township staff.

But I digress from the events of Saturday evening, June 14, when my daughter and I rode our tandem bike towards Pettoranello Gardens to catch the end of the show, unfazed by the storm front that loomed on the horizon. We arrived at the amphitheater at dusk, to find avant-garde alto saxophonist Oliver Lake playing with a guitarist and drummer, as lightning flashed in the background and the wind kicked up.

It was the most richly metaphorical performance I've ever heard. The wind kept blowing their written music off the stage, as audience members scrambled to retrieve them--their music all the while going places no written notes could ever convey. And seeds, probably from a cottonwood tree, swirled around them as they poured notes out into the night air. Their music and the approaching storm raged as one, with one indomitable force resisting envelopment by another.

People were reluctant to run for cover, mesmerized by the drama. Finally Lake played a short melody to end, and spoke parting words into the mic. The drummer stood up, still playing the drums, and called to the audience in semi-mock urgency to run for cover. "Grab something and run!" he said, and seconds later heavy raindrops began to fall. We biked towards home in the downpour, taking refuge at Conte's, where the closed doors and A/C made the storm seem a distant dream.

How to Parallel Park in a Parallel Universe

If you don't like the sight of parking garages, and the thought of how much fossil fuel oversized cars are consuming, then the old neighborhoods of Rome can come as a relief. Narrow streets and very limited parking has created what for an American is a parallel universe populated by scooters and tiny cars.

The "smart" car--a small car with an attitude that is coming to the States this year--is a common sight. It's so short it can park like a scooter if the space is too minute for parallel parking.




I had read that Rome's streets are noisy and dangerous, but in the old district, at least, there was a lot of gentle driving going on, and the reported racket of car horns turned out to be only a periodic, polite peep.

When I was ten years old, I visited Europe and, when I wasn't throwing rocks in alpine streams in an imaginative effort to re-sink the Bismark, I was admiring the scooters that quietly zipped people around. Decades later, I have the same reaction. Motorcycles without the macho connotations.

A web search suggests that the 'smart' cars don't get particularly spectacular gas mileage--in the 30 to 40 mpg range. Scooters are up around 85 mpg.