Sometimes I think about how languages change dramatically over the years. I guess that comes from not having much of a life. Consider, my high school German students could more easily decipher Middle German, spoken around 1200, than they could English spoken around 1000. And languages change fairly rapidly. The average person today could not read Old English, but would not find the English of 100 or so years later to be that difficult. In the span of history, that isn’t a very long time, two or three generations. If Old English had been spoken, say in 1909, we would have known people in our younger days who still spoke it. Pretty amazing, I would say, particularly when it just didn’t happen in one tiny village but all over the place. Most European languages that I am familiar with have made dramatic sound shifts at one time or another. German made one around 900AD. Look at the difference between the Spanish and Italian spoken today and the Latin that was its common tongue. The latter did not even have the definite article (“the”) The Germanic languages spoken by the Gothic tribes that invaded the areas during the collapse of the Roman Empire did, however. Perhaps that’s where it came from.
And then languages change on a personal family level. For example, since my oldest daughter Heather was born, the word “banana” has been replaced in our family language by “balana.” Breakfast has become “greface.” Rhododendrons have been replaced with “Road from Denvers.” My second daughter, Laura, interested in sports, introduced us to “lympics” and “nastics” for Olympics and gymnastics. To “train” for her coming Olympic, gymnastic career, she wore “norts” and “lockies,” or shorts and long socks. Even the beloved Red Sox have come into our speech as “The Lockies.” Since we are not important people, these will never make it into the common tongue, although I did hear my brother-in-law ask my sister for a “balana” the other day. If we were royalty maybe in 100 years, people would eat their greface under a Road from Denver.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
My friend, Bob Hawkins
When I started working for the Maine Department of Education in the early 1980’s, one of the first people I met and who befriended me was Bob Hawkins. Bob was in his early 60’s at the time, was small, like me, and had been a boxer in the Marines during WWII. This carried over to the way he would dance his boxer’s footwork down the halls of the office building, and jump his way up stairs as if he were jumping rope, just to show off that he could still do it. He had a puckish sense of humor, which he immediately used to get me into trouble with one of the secretaries.
Early on, I realized that I could tell Bob any joke, no matter how politically incorrect without him being offended, and one Monday, after learning the story of a leper in a bar at an Army Reserve drill, I decided to tell him.
A leper walked into a bar and asked the bartender if he could get a drink. When told yes, he gratefully thanked the man, saying, “I usually upset people, so it’s very nice of you to serve me.”
“No problem,” the barkeep replied, “We serve anyone. It doesn’t matter what you are, everyone is equal here.”
The leper then orders a gin and tonic, and as he raises his glass to drink, he notices the barman, go to the end of the counter and throw up in the trash can. When he returns, the leper orders a second drink, and sees the same thing happen. During the third drink, the poor bartender is retching violently with the dry heaves.
He returns to refill the leper’s glass, wiping his pale face with a towel. “I’m sorry, if my presence here makes you ill,” says the leper. “I’ll leave.”
“Oh no,” replies the embarrassed bartender, “It’s not you. It’s the guy next to you dipping his crackers in your arm.”
Bob nodded, and admitted it was a good story and suggested I tell it to one of the secretaries, an older woman, with children about my age. I demurred at first, but he called her over and said, “Bill, has a story he would like to tell you about a gentleman with Hansen’s disease.” Thus began the incident of the two innocents, she not knowing what Hansen’s disease was, and I not knowing that she was going to be totally grossed out. That was my third day on the job.
On my fourth day, Bob told our boss that we would be going over to the State Office Building to pick up a print order and that I should meet people in the other building. That part was true. What he didn’t tell me was that, as a native of the area, he felt it his duty to show me the old granite quarries nearby in Hallowell, so away we went down old single lane, unplowed roads. It was February, and when we tried to turn around we got stuck and he had to call his brother, a retired Army officer to pull us out. Neither he, nor our boss was particularly thrilled, but I didn’t get fired that day either. I think, Fred, our boss, realized there would be some entertainment value to the two of us.
Bob aspired to be a poet. When threatening rain clouds appeared, he would loudly exclaim that, “Those clouds look juicy.” And from this he came up with a little poem I’ve always remembered:
“Them juicy clouds are full of dew;
The rain is going to fall;
You’ll be needing your umbrella;
It’s a hanging in the hall.”
But the poem he always wanted to write and never finished, started with the memorable line:
“It’s a long, long way, I think, do you?
From Keetmanshoop to Katmandu.”
We struggled over that for months, and although I came up with a second line of:
“And farther still, I understand;
From Singapore to Samarkand.”
We were never able to finish what might have been a great poem.
Bob is gone now, and like with so many of his generation, the world is a little more boring without him.
Early on, I realized that I could tell Bob any joke, no matter how politically incorrect without him being offended, and one Monday, after learning the story of a leper in a bar at an Army Reserve drill, I decided to tell him.
A leper walked into a bar and asked the bartender if he could get a drink. When told yes, he gratefully thanked the man, saying, “I usually upset people, so it’s very nice of you to serve me.”
“No problem,” the barkeep replied, “We serve anyone. It doesn’t matter what you are, everyone is equal here.”
The leper then orders a gin and tonic, and as he raises his glass to drink, he notices the barman, go to the end of the counter and throw up in the trash can. When he returns, the leper orders a second drink, and sees the same thing happen. During the third drink, the poor bartender is retching violently with the dry heaves.
He returns to refill the leper’s glass, wiping his pale face with a towel. “I’m sorry, if my presence here makes you ill,” says the leper. “I’ll leave.”
“Oh no,” replies the embarrassed bartender, “It’s not you. It’s the guy next to you dipping his crackers in your arm.”
Bob nodded, and admitted it was a good story and suggested I tell it to one of the secretaries, an older woman, with children about my age. I demurred at first, but he called her over and said, “Bill, has a story he would like to tell you about a gentleman with Hansen’s disease.” Thus began the incident of the two innocents, she not knowing what Hansen’s disease was, and I not knowing that she was going to be totally grossed out. That was my third day on the job.
On my fourth day, Bob told our boss that we would be going over to the State Office Building to pick up a print order and that I should meet people in the other building. That part was true. What he didn’t tell me was that, as a native of the area, he felt it his duty to show me the old granite quarries nearby in Hallowell, so away we went down old single lane, unplowed roads. It was February, and when we tried to turn around we got stuck and he had to call his brother, a retired Army officer to pull us out. Neither he, nor our boss was particularly thrilled, but I didn’t get fired that day either. I think, Fred, our boss, realized there would be some entertainment value to the two of us.
Bob aspired to be a poet. When threatening rain clouds appeared, he would loudly exclaim that, “Those clouds look juicy.” And from this he came up with a little poem I’ve always remembered:
“Them juicy clouds are full of dew;
The rain is going to fall;
You’ll be needing your umbrella;
It’s a hanging in the hall.”
But the poem he always wanted to write and never finished, started with the memorable line:
“It’s a long, long way, I think, do you?
From Keetmanshoop to Katmandu.”
We struggled over that for months, and although I came up with a second line of:
“And farther still, I understand;
From Singapore to Samarkand.”
We were never able to finish what might have been a great poem.
Bob is gone now, and like with so many of his generation, the world is a little more boring without him.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
UNH Magazine Online
William K. Millar, Jr. '68
When I graduated from UNH I was told by the ROTC department that, as a German major, I could expect to be sent to Germany as a Military Intelligence officer. Neither I, nor anyone who knew me, could picture me as an infantry officer, but there I was, all 115 pounds of me as a platoon leader in the First Cavalry Division. On the plane trip over to Vietnam, I started writing a journal. The opening paragraphs of my book are actually what I wrote on the plane that night. I maintained the journal until the monsoon rains rendered the paper un-writeable.
In 1974, I was newly divorced, teaching at York High School, in York, Maine, and still feeling the effects of Vietnam. I started writing down my experiences on the backs of unused test papers I pulled from the trash. It was finally completed in 1978. By this time, I was remarried to Susan Collins '71. She was teaching at UNH and represented the Nursing Department on the Faculty Senate. One of her fellow senators was Don Murray. She asked him if he would be interested in reading my book, and so, he took the manuscript, still on the old tests and bound up in four term paper folders. About a week later, he called and asked me to come over to his office some afternoon when I was done teaching. Needless to say, I went with some trepidation.
After trading war stories, Don handed the manuscript to me and asked me what I was planning to do with it. I said I didn't know, and would probably just stash it somewhere. In typical Don Murray fashion, he graphically told me why I should try to publish it. I won't use his exact words, but they were from one infantryman to another. Last year, my eldest daughter decided she would take the manuscript to Lulu.com and make a book for me as a Christmas present, and so here it is.
http://unhmagazine.unh.edu/sp09/bookreviews.html
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thoughts on the Fourth of July: What if.
Yesterday was July the fourth, Independence Day. As I was walking away from watching fireworks over Middle Bay, I pondered the “what ifs,” which I do a lot.
What if there had been no Revolution. After all, the taxes the British government was levying on the American colonists were to defray the cost of their defense, a fair request, in my mind, since the taxpayer in England was doing it for them.
Many colonists felt that way, and while they may not have liked having more taxes laid on them, no one does, they believed that King George represented the legal government. It is a fact, not taught in high school history, that, in fact there was a rather large number of people who remained, at least quietly, loyal to the Crown, and many of the troops wearing red coats, were not brought over from England at all, but were native born Americans.
So what would it have been like if the radicals (as they were seen at the time) had not prevailed? What would the current United States look like today?
I don’t really know, but I can guess, and since this is my space, I’m going to. First off, we would eventually have become a dominion of the British Empire and finally independent as has Canada, Australia, and South Africa. At some point, probably fairly early in our history, a central government would have been created, as was done in Canada. So, we would be pretty much where we are now.
But what would have been different? Settlers would have arrived from other countries, as they were doing at the time, and they would have pushed west towards the Mississippi. But without exuberance of having become a new nation and idea of Manifest Destiny, what would have been their relationships to the nations and confederations of Native Americans they encountered? Perhaps there would not have been the belief in a God given right to drive them out. Many Native Americans did indeed move north into Canada where they found better treatment at the hands of the Canadian authorities.
Would Lewis and Clark have explored the Louisiana Purchase? Probably, but it would not have been the Louisiana Purchase but rather Louisiana Land Grab, taken from Napoleon when he was defeated.
Would the Southwest be part of the US or a larger Mexico? My feeling is, the latter may well have been the case. Without the revolutionary zeal to conquer all of North America, settlers certainly would have moved into Mexican territory, as they were invited by the Mexican government to do, but may well have become Mexican citizens, and would not have been supported by royal government. The Republic of Texas might have come to pass, but may well have remained an independent country. Can you imagine needing a visa to watch the Dallas Cowboys play, and Lyndon Johnson could not have been president of the United States.
As the British Empire abolished slavery in its territories, the Civil War would not have been fought and much of our racial history would have been radically altered.
The US would have entered World War I in 1914 and World War II in 1939. The infusion of US material and manpower at those early stages could have shortened those wars considerably. My father may well have served in the 104th Royal Timberwolf Division.
My grandmother would have been born a native instead of Canadian, as her ancestors evacuated to Nova Scotia with the British troops following the siege of Boston.
But, although I can imagine the Patriots playing the Redskins in a rugby match, I cannot for the life of me picture the beloved Red Sox as a cricket team.
What if there had been no Revolution. After all, the taxes the British government was levying on the American colonists were to defray the cost of their defense, a fair request, in my mind, since the taxpayer in England was doing it for them.
Many colonists felt that way, and while they may not have liked having more taxes laid on them, no one does, they believed that King George represented the legal government. It is a fact, not taught in high school history, that, in fact there was a rather large number of people who remained, at least quietly, loyal to the Crown, and many of the troops wearing red coats, were not brought over from England at all, but were native born Americans.
So what would it have been like if the radicals (as they were seen at the time) had not prevailed? What would the current United States look like today?
I don’t really know, but I can guess, and since this is my space, I’m going to. First off, we would eventually have become a dominion of the British Empire and finally independent as has Canada, Australia, and South Africa. At some point, probably fairly early in our history, a central government would have been created, as was done in Canada. So, we would be pretty much where we are now.
But what would have been different? Settlers would have arrived from other countries, as they were doing at the time, and they would have pushed west towards the Mississippi. But without exuberance of having become a new nation and idea of Manifest Destiny, what would have been their relationships to the nations and confederations of Native Americans they encountered? Perhaps there would not have been the belief in a God given right to drive them out. Many Native Americans did indeed move north into Canada where they found better treatment at the hands of the Canadian authorities.
Would Lewis and Clark have explored the Louisiana Purchase? Probably, but it would not have been the Louisiana Purchase but rather Louisiana Land Grab, taken from Napoleon when he was defeated.
Would the Southwest be part of the US or a larger Mexico? My feeling is, the latter may well have been the case. Without the revolutionary zeal to conquer all of North America, settlers certainly would have moved into Mexican territory, as they were invited by the Mexican government to do, but may well have become Mexican citizens, and would not have been supported by royal government. The Republic of Texas might have come to pass, but may well have remained an independent country. Can you imagine needing a visa to watch the Dallas Cowboys play, and Lyndon Johnson could not have been president of the United States.
As the British Empire abolished slavery in its territories, the Civil War would not have been fought and much of our racial history would have been radically altered.
The US would have entered World War I in 1914 and World War II in 1939. The infusion of US material and manpower at those early stages could have shortened those wars considerably. My father may well have served in the 104th Royal Timberwolf Division.
My grandmother would have been born a native instead of Canadian, as her ancestors evacuated to Nova Scotia with the British troops following the siege of Boston.
But, although I can imagine the Patriots playing the Redskins in a rugby match, I cannot for the life of me picture the beloved Red Sox as a cricket team.
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