danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

Thursday night is garbage night around here, and this evening I did my chore as usual, getting the recycling together, and wheeling the large can out to the curb.  It was getting dark as I did this, and I looked up to see an old white work van driving slowly down the street, stopping at the corner of my yard before backing up.  I could hear the occupants of the vehicle talking to each other and looking toward my house, and this had me a little concerned.  It is a bold burglar that goes casing a house while its owner stands in the yard.

Then I heard the driver say something–first to his companion, then to me–that both dispelled my fear and surprised me.  “My father planted that tree”, he said, pointing to one of the cedars in the front yard.  The man, who appeared to be middle aged, got out of the van, introduced himself, and told me his parents lived in this house when he was born.  For the next several minutes, in a very animated fashion, he told me stories about he and his brother and father, and what the house was like when he lived here, until his teen years.  He described the inside when he lived here (“the back room [which I now call the middle room] had a built-in wall bookshelf”; “there were parquet floors” [there still are]), and told me stories about how he and his brother used to play in the yard and on the great live oak, which, of course, is much older than the neighborhood.  He told me a few things I had already surmised (our foyer used to be a screened porch; there used to be a building on the slab in our back yard), but I was thrilled to have the opportunity to ask some questions I’ve wanted answered for years.  The square cut out of the slab in the back was where his father had a brick barbecue grill, until he and his brother broke it down with a hammer when he was seven.  The house used to be green.  The bathroom tile isn’t original because his father ripped up the floor to replace a pipe.  Before the Hewetts’ house was built, the block to the west was an empty field.  He told me that for most of his childhood the house had two bedrooms, but eventually they built a small room behind the kitchen.  So, I know now that something preceded the dining room and guest room that stand today.

This man seemed so thrilled to be sharing these memories, and I felt extremely privileged to be hearing them.  I think a lot about all the places I once called home.  I’ve even driven past a few of them just like this fellow did tonight.  I’ve never met any occupants of my former homes, but I would like to think they care for these places as much as I did, and still do.

I know a beautiful old song about a man who visits the house where he grew up, and meets the family that now lives there.  He shares his memories with them and it makes him happy, but he realizes that a house is “a hotel at best”.  Just as my new friend was “a guest” in this house, so too may I be.  Just as this house means something very special to him, it means something special to me.  And some day, ages and ages hence, I may drive slowly past it, and remember everything it means to me.

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Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, House, Nostalgia on February 27th, 2009 | No Comments »

On NPR this morning, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said, “the default rate on mortgages that have been modified thus far is very high”.  This statement caught my attention because, first, I have been saying for quite a while that getting people out of ARMs and into 30-year fixed-rate loans is the best way to prevent foreclosures, and, second, it is intentionally misleading.

Last week I read about two people in south Florida who had their mortgages modified.  One woman’s interest rate dropped 11% when her terms were changed.  Another man saw no change in his monthly payment because the bank added so many fees and penalties.  She kept her house; he went into foreclosure after all.

Rep. Cantor is right that the default rate on modified mortgages is high, but only if your definition of “modified” is very broad:

“It’s becoming more and more clear to us that if you do real modifications the default rate is significantly lower”, said Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa, who has led a group of state officials pushing the industry to modify more loans. “They shouldn’t be called modifications if people pay more or approximately the same”.

The facts are that genuine modifications keep 75% of borrowers in their homes, and allow them to stay current.  If the “modifications” Rep. Cantor criticizes fail, it’s because they aren’t modifications at all.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics, Rantings on February 25th, 2009 | No Comments »

Things right now are going very badly for me.  Here is a short list, in no particular order:

• I have no working toilet in my house.
• I have several exams and papers due this week.
• My poor wife has been injured or sick for several weeks and I am powerless to make her feel any better.
• My email seems to work only around 50% of the time.
• Cox Cable switched from the national PBS high-definition feed to the local one, and now I don’t get the same programs; other programs I like show at different times; the signal looks much worse; and I will now have to endure the frequent pledge drives, which the national feed doesn’t carry.
• I still haven’t got my motorized bicycle running.
• I changed guitar strings a few weeks ago, and now my Telecaster won’t stay in tune with itself.
• My guitar makes an annoying buzzing sound because the outlet my amplifier is plugged into isn’t grounded.
• I cannot stop eating Girl Scout Cookies and I feel guilty.
• I have a million chores to do around the house and very little time to do them.
• I have to read hundreds of pages for school, and I am not up to the task.
• I am very tired, and it’s only nine o’clock in the morning.
• When I am at school, I cannot concentrate on what my professors are saying, because I am thinking about one or more of the above.

Filed under: Health, House, Rantings, School on February 25th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

A baseball player with a .500 batting average would be MVP, but I don’t know if that standard holds for television.  And I know one program that is just that hit or miss:  Masterpiece Theater.  As I wrote recently, Tess of the d’Urbervilles was splendid, but the Wuthering Heights which followed was lousy.  Three weeks ago they began broadcasting Sense and Sensibility, and it was excellent.  The cast–especially the actress playing Elinor Dashwood–was super, and, as you’d expect, the costumes and sets were enchanting.  In the screenshot you see here, Elinor has just received Edward’s proposal.  She had until moments before believed him to be married to another woman, which had broken her heart.  But, as it turns out, that other woman had married his brother instead.  When Elinor hears Edward say that he is, in fact, not married, she is overcome.  What made the performance so affecting was the way the actress playing Elinor went from a placid expression to full-on break-down in an instant.

Last Sunday night, Masterpiece began broadcasting Oliver Twist, and it is, I am sad to say, awful.  Scenes important in the book are excised, others not in the book are invented, as is much dialog.  The characters do not seem at all like what I pictured from reading the novel.  Worst of all is the ridiculously anachronistic soundtrack.  There are screaming electric guitars.  I suppose you could point out that almost every movie set before the eighteenth century has a soundtrack that is not, shall we say, historically informed.  But Oliver Twist is set smack in the middle of the Romantic era, and it would have been so much less distracting to use acurate music.

So, I am a bit worried for what the rest of this season has in store.  Meanwhile, note to self:  if you ever become penniless, chose to live in the charming Devonshire countryside instead of putrid London.

Filed under: Literature and Books, Television on February 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »

Today is the 200th birthday of the greatest American, Abraham Lincoln.

As a number of recent books and documentaries point out, much of what is believed today about Lincoln says more about us than about him.  That is to say, Lincoln is such a towering figure, that everyone wants to have Lincoln on his side.  So, whatever beliefs or ideals you hold, you will attempt to ascribe those to Lincoln.  The problem with this is obvious.

Meanwhile, I find it vexing that some today try to vilify Lincoln because his words and actions do not live up to the idea of perfection we have attributed to Lincoln.  For example, as twenty-first century Americans, it shocks some that Lincoln did not believe that blacks were the intellectual equal of whites, or that Lincoln used “the N-word”.  Some take this fact and reach the unreasonable conclusion that Lincoln was a “white supremacist” and a racist.  The problem with this, of course, is that these people are not acknowledging the reality of context.  When Lincoln lived, almost every white American was incredibly racist and almost nobody–and certainly nobody in the mainstream of society–was arguing for full equality for blacks.  The truth is this: Lincoln was always opposed to slavery, and no other man with a realistic chance of becoming president of the United States in 1861 was as open-minded, or better suited for that office, in those circumstances, at that time.  It is difficult to imagine anyone else but Lincoln having the wisdom and tenacity to preserve the Union.  Abraham Lincoln personally did more good for his country than any other man.  If you care that Florida and Vermont are in the same country today, thank Abraham Lincoln.

Meanwhile, as one who appreciates good writing, I am endlessly impressed by Lincoln’s words.  One of the best teachers I’ve ever had, Professor Brian McCrea, often quotes Lincoln’s second inaugural address, and cites it as the ideal example of parallel sentence structure.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up our nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Setting aside the beauty of the language, and the nobility of the content, that sentence is structurally brilliant.  It is remarkably long for one sentence, but it is held together perfectly by its parallel structure.  It even follows Dr. McCrea’s convention that the last clause in a parallel sentence should be the longest (in this case, “to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations”).  A politician today would not have said the preceding the same way.  He would more likely say, “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in.  Let us bind up our nations wounds”, etc.  Parallel structure, as Dr. McCrea would say, is a feature of sophisticated writing.

Happy Birthday, Lincoln.

Filed under: History, Special Occasions on February 12th, 2009 | No Comments »