Journal of a Sabbatical

nice day for reading about massacres

April 13, 1998




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Todays' starting pitcher: Brett Saberhagen


Today's reading: The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity by Jill Lepore


Today's coffee encounters: Right Wing Anne, Tom, Julie


Today's weather: clear and cool - the essence of spring


I was engrossed in The Name of War, the chapter on the Great Swamp Massacre, when Right Wing Anne greeted me. She'd been at the corner table engrossed in the New York Times and hadn't seen me come in. Naturally she wanted to know what I was reading. Not surprisingly, she had never heard of King Philip's War. More surprisingly, when I was talking about Providence and Roger Williams and his relationship with the Narragansetts, she asked "Who was Roger Williams?" Tom was there at that point and reacted with astonishment until I explained to him that Anne, although American, had grown up in Japan and had not learned American history. Julie arrived just as I was giving my "Roger Williams and the separation of church and state" speech. Since Julie's a historian, I was a little embarrassed at my account but Julie didn't grade me on it.

Julie left to go buy some new stockings to wear for a talk she's giving tomorrow night. I told her nobody would be looking at her stockings when she's talking about crime and punishment in colonial New England, but she decided she'd better get them anyway. Suddenly, Tom realized he didn't have his book bag with him. He left in a hurry to retrace his steps. While he was gone, Anne regaled me with stories of why vegetarianism in not healthy - among other things. Just as I was getting tired of even thinking about arguing such points as "vegetarians drink a lot of orange juice and other juices that are sweet and have too many calories" and "vegetarians eat too much junk food" and other strange misconceptions, Tom returned, then Julie returned. Anne left. Tom and Julie left. I left.

On the way home I stopped at the Earthfood Store to buy a vegetarian lunch because I didn't have much in the way of groceries at home. I got a combo plate with gomoku soba, tofu with broccoli and carrots, and sauteed hijiki. None of the above were sweet or junk, although I might have overdone it on the tofu 'cause the hijiki had soybeans in it.

After lunch I wrote out checks for bills and taxes, researched visual databases on the web for my virtual forest project, read a little more on King Philip's War, bought groceries, took the tax forms to the post office to make sure I had enough postage on them (I didn't - I had to add 14 cents to each one), picked up my laundry, got gasoline for the Auntmobile, threw away the junk mail, read the mail that actually had content (a note from Ned in response to my threshold poem, and my bank statement), checked my e-mail and responded to a long message from Joan-west, cooked supper with the newly purchased groceries, ate some junk food -Oops I mean supper - and turned on the ball game.

I am listening to the Red Sox leading Oakland at the moment. Saberhagen is pitching well. Oops, Steve Avery has come in in relief and is not pitching well, but the Sox still lead.

It's getting cold out and I need to close the windows. It must be time for more junk food and excessive quantities of orange juice. Wait, wait, this just in Tom Gordon retired the side in order in the 9th and the Red Sox win 6 to 3, their 4th in a row.

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