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What is ironically painful about this is that Bernie Madoff's retirement will be all-expenses paid - housing, food, clothing, medical care - while many if not most of those whom he robbed of a financially carefree, secure post-working life will suffer immeasurably. The settlement allows his wife to retain $2.5 million for her dotage. I think I could manage a long, comfortable retirement on that, speaking for myself. Of course, she will be deprived of her husband's company. Since I still don't believe she could possibly have been unaware of what her husband was doing for a living, I'm not sending her condolences any time soon.
I’ve been thinking for a while now - ever since I learned the conclusion of this story – about how to write about it. Now I’m just going to write. On my first full day in Yellowstone this year (May 28), happily watching a grizzly sow bear and her large cub in the distance in Hayden Valley, I ran into a friend who had been in the park for a while. He said, “There’s an injured moose cow and her new calf over by Trout Lake [at a far end of the park from where we were standing], be sure to look for them when you’re over that way.”
A week later my itinerary finally took me past Trout Lake. There, across from the parking pullout for the trail to the lake, lying in the shade, were a resting cow moose and her tiny, intermittently napping calf. It was clear that no one among the onlookers knew exactly how she had been injured, or when, or even if it was before or after she bore the calf. Those who had seen her wounds said it seemed likely she had been attacked by any one of several possible predators in the area: wolves, a grizzly, possibly even a mountain lion. But from my vantage that day, they looked fine. Mom moose was scruffy, but her kind are in late spring as their winter coats are slowly replaced with sleekness. It wasn’t apparent that she had anything wrong with her. I was delighted that it looked like all might be well, and after taking a few photos from too far away, I continued with my itinerary for the day.I saw them again the next day. Still alive, still looking normal, still attracting a small fleet of photographers and well-wishers.
Then, on my last day in the park (June 5), very early in the morning, I came across two stopped cars, occupants looking to the opposite side of the road from where the mother and baby had been for several days. They had moved uphill and were standing in the beautiful morning light above me about 50 yards. I was thrilled to see them standing for the first time, moving around normally. The cow kept an eye on me as I set up my tripod. The active little calf sniffed and looked and listened and raised its nose to its mother’s face, turned around and explored the brush behind it, then nuzzled again. Then the cow extended her head, revealing deep gashes in her neck and jowl. Through my binoculars they appeared to be granulating, that is, healing from the inside. This was great news, as it meant the chance of infection from an encapsulated wound, unable to drain, was much lower. It crossed my mind that there would not yet be maggots to clean the wound, though, as frost was still a nightly occurrence. I watched a while, until the mother led her infant into the trees. I left them, and Yellowstone, thinking there was every chance the mother would heal and the calf would grow and mature and go on to make calves of its own in a couple of years.
On June 9, the cow’s body was found in the Lamar River. The calf died, doubtless of starvation, a day or two later.
A million thoughts have crossed my mind, competing for space with sadness. When I witness, or learn of, the death of an infant creature in Yellowstone (not just a regular, but a frequent, occurrence) I think of the of all of the wasted biological energy that went into bringing the new being to daylight. I hope at least the carcasses were left where they lay so they could go on to nurture babies of other species: coyotes, eagles, ravens, magpies, bears…
Another side of me thinks, over and over, of that moose infant slowly dying after its mother suddenly morphed from a nurturing, feeding, animated protector to a crumpled lump of dead flesh, bone, and fur.
Step 7. Shake it offStep 8. Shake shake shake off some more
Voilà! A Clean Bear!
(All this took place June 5, 2009, in a seasonal pond across the road from the Yellowstone River Picnic grounds, Yellowstone National Park; this is a black bear, extremely common in that area.)
This is completely brilliant. I could easily while away lots more time getting into it, since I like little stuff, photography, digital archives, precise descriptions,E.O Wilson, and everything else about it:
In our neighborhood, for as long as I can remember (which is a while, I’ve lived here more than 40 years), we have had two first-class used book stores. My favorite is Powell’s (of their three Chicago stores, ours is pictured on their Web site). Over the years I’ve sold them plenty of books. May whoever bought them enjoy them in good health!
One of KLK’s and my favorite routines is to have dinner at the Caffè Florian, across the street, and then to visit Powell’s before they close. He disappears into the rabbit hole of the basement where the science fiction paperbacks live. I head straight for the back corner where the nature volumes and “westernalia” can be found. They always have an oddly wide-ranging offering of bird guides: Birds of Western Africa, Costa Rican Waterfowl, Backyard Birds of Britain, A History of Falconry, Sibley’s Guide to Birds…an ever-changing selection of newer and older books of greater or lesser interest. I’ve also picked up some good resources on Yellowstone and western history there. But just like shopping at Filene’s Basement, it’s always hit-or-miss, making good finds all the sweeter.
Frustrated with the terrible (awful) photos in my Shaw’s Plants of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, last Friday I extended my search to flora to see if someone had given up for sale something more useful to me. I pulled off the shelf a little green volume, “Trees and Shrubs of the Rocky Mountain Region” by Burton O. Longyear. I could see from the spine that it was a hardback but as a little book (just 6¾ x 4 x 1 inch thick) I thought it might make a handy field guide nonetheless. But as soon as I pulled it off the shelf and opened it I could see that it was special. Indeed, though it is in very-nearly perfect condition, it is a 1927 original. How it survived all these years in pristine shape I can’t imagine.
In fact the “One Hundred and Twenty-eight Pen Drawings by the Author” are very nice, maybe even good enough for definitive identification out there in the woods. Also among Trees and Shrubs’ charms are the nine colored plates. There’s no comment in the book about how the colored images were created, that is, by tinting traditional grayscale photographs, or from color film originals (or other options I know little of). They look a little odd, with plenty of green leaves and brown trunks, and very pale, low contrast skies and clouds. Nonetheless, they’re pleasingly vibrant after 82 years (unlike some people I know).
And inside the back cover are the final sweet treats: hand-written is the original price, 1.00. Next to it, Powell’s price, 10.00. According to Westegg.com, one 1927 dollar is worth 12.30 2008 dollars, so it was a bargain then and now. And at the bottom of the page is a modest, pretty little green sticker (in original condition, I might add) that says, in tiny print:
Ruth Silliman ● Carol Truax Their Book Shop 5 Pikes Peak Avenue Colorado Springs, Colo.
Nice, too, to know there were women shop owners, and proud of it, back in 1927. Their shop, indeed.
Yes, this is really where I was not too many days ago. It is the iconic Mount Moran reflected in the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park. Back in those willows there are moose, doubtless, and that pristine mirror of a river (the exact location is Oxbow Bend) will be rippled every so often by beavers or river otters. And keep an eye overhead as well, so as not to miss the bald eagles, osprey, blue herons and sandhill cranes. If we're lucky, a coyote will trot by, sticking to its busy agenda. In the distance, cow elk are grazing, their young calves completely still, bedded down invisible, hard for a grizzly to find. And right in front of us are the sunny little yellow warblers, too close to focus my lens on.
Smelly, (very) dirty, empty, worn out...farewell, old friend. We saw lots and lots of miles and fun together. Your replacement looks really clean, doesn't stink, holds lots of stuff (as did you) and has bells, whistles, and many, many pockets that I haven't figured out how best to fill. I like it, but I'll definitely miss you!
Composing my life story (a long-term project of mine) has sometimes had the feel of writing my own obituary, and as it turns out, there is a family history of doing just that. My paternal grandfather placed his own obituary in a Budapest newspaper, for what might be apocryphal reasons, according to family lore. I’ve heard several versions: to see what his friends’ reactions would be; to help him dip below the radar following some less-than-wholesome money-getting activities; as a prank. As my cousin LP, whose uncle my grandfather was, says affectionately, “his reputation was rather questionable.”
Dr. Sebeők Dezső. Or Derso?
(Hungarian-style: honorific, last name, first name)
My father’s father was a Hungarian Jew, born Sommer Dezső in Budapest in January of 1891 to Albert and Janka Sommer; he went by an assortment of first and last names throughout his lifetime. He had changed the German-sounding Sommer to Sebeők (pronounced approximately SHEH-bek, meaning “Sebastian” in Hungarian) by the time he was an adult. After Grandfather came to the U.S. in 1936, he used more alternate names, and eventually adopted the apparently manufactured last name Shybekay.* In fact he published 15 or more works in English, under the name of Derso Sebeok Shybekay. I think Derso is how his Hungarian given name, Dezső, looked when he wrote it, and I would guess Americans found it easy to pronounce.
A lawyer re-educated as engineer? Undated, unlabeled photo.
He practiced law in Hungary, even serving briefly as a judge, and wrote on the legal status of Hungarian Jews. He brought my father, his only child, then 16, to the United States to attend college at the University of Chicago, and went on to remarry (again unhappily) after divorcing my grandmother, and to make a life for himself as an industrial, or organizational engineer. He continued writing, self-publishing such fascinating works as “Motion and Time Study: Time Standards.” He was also regularly quoted in the press, where he was variously identified as the president of the National Council of Industrial and Professional Engineers (New York Times, 1949) and the president of the Industrial Research Council of America (Chicago Daily Tribune, 1950). Either these organizations left no trace, or possibly they were of his own manufacture. He also at times identified himself as an editor, though LP and I have not yet figured out what, exactly, he might have been editor of.
A big frog.
My grandfather, who I believe never laid eyes on me, died when I was a very small child. I remember knowing only two things about him. First, he gave me, his “only one beloved grandchild,” two large and two small green rubber frogs, dressed in vests with big black buttons, riding coats and tails, standing upright, arms akimbo, large smiles on their friendly, toothless faces. The two big ones squealed out of a metal-ringed hole in one of their over-sized black-shod feet when squeezed. I never understood why the little ones didn’t also have nice noise-makers, but they were silent. Looking back on it, I’m a little surprised I liked them as much as I did. At least one specimen lasted into the final quarter of the 20th century, but the last time I looked into The Trunk of Childhood Treasures, there weren’t any frogs in there anymore. I suppose their rubber flesh got sticky and discorporated somewhere along the line. The other thing I distinctly remember was that my father’s father had been diagnosed with diabetes. For a while there was a small blue pamphlet on the subject lying around the house, and I know he had to inject insulin. It’s not surprising that he died so young.
"To Veronica von Sebeok, My only one beloved grandchild,
who does not know hes [sic] love her. Grandfather"
I know in his last years he was living in Washington, D.C. and that he probably died in 1952. Where he (or his ashes) might be buried I can’t determine. My father, now also deceased, was never forthcoming about his father, in life or in death.
*It’s wonderful that he picked a truly unique name, greatly facilitating 21st century searches for whatever legacy he left beyond my own in this world. Gradually I'm piecing bits together; I just recently located more of his correspondence at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. I'm eagerly awaiting the public release of the 1940 U.S. Census (in 2012) where I'll likely catch yet another glimpse of him.
This left me speechless when I first saw it in our neighborhood newspaper, the Hyde Park Herald. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Now that I've had a few days to think about it, I think if anyone gave me a gift certificate for a high colonic, I would simply have to disown them.
My Mother's Day wish for you is that no one gives you a colonic cleansing this year.
Ever since I posted the photos of the squirrel I've been trying to think of what her eating method reminded me of; it finally came to me. She was just like this teletype machine, except she never paused to wait for more data to come across the wires.
Remember these things? Oh, and you must turn on sound for the full effect! (Not that the squirrel made quite that kind of racket, though red squirrels really can be noisy - they're real scolds.)
