Sunday 6th September 2009 - A Day of Rest

          Sunday is, of course, a day of rest.  Achieved, in good celtic tradition, by going to church and drinking heavily (in that order, of course).  This being Minnesota, I have lots of people to go to church for me, but it is not kind to delegate the other. 

          This is an extra day: I should be on my way to VA today; this is the last holiday weekend of summer, everyone will be static today, coming/going home tomorrow.  I have decided, while everyone is at church, to wash the horses and instruct the servants.  Rozzie is pleased to have his ears cleaned out and various bits and pieces of tackle fixed.  Dulcie refuses to coome indoors and speak sensibly.  She insists that she must breathe the outdoor air to commune with her muses: it's Sunday, I will be tollerant.  But I get everything stowed, and everyone alert to the tasks of the next few days.  Then I can rest.

         

         Later that night, I find a nest of catholics to fall among, leading only the closest of relatives astray.

Saturday 5th September 2009 - An Attempt at Retail Therapy

          My idea of shopping is to sit down at the computer and surf a few 'review' sites, focus in on the subset from which I'm going to buy, then trawl a few retail sites till I see a combination of best product and best price.  Then I get them to send it to me.

          Of course, I can't do that now.  I have to go to actual shops, speak to actual shop assistants, go to other shops if they haven't got want I want. 

          I am presently a few miles from the biggest shopping mall on this spiral arm of the galaxy, so I thought I would indulge in some exploration.  A chap has to learn new skills from time-to-time.

          The purpose of the trip was to find a cheap pocket camera.  It turns out I don't want to look like a tourist when I'm out in my Glasgows, so I can't bear to carry my fancy digital SLR camera.  Inevitably, this means I don't get some pictures I want, or I get phone pictures, which are no more than an aide-memoire, and only really viewable on the phone.

          Of course, I still started with the on-line reviews.  Then I went to the local Walmart, just to calibrate.  Then I went off to the mall.  The Mall of America, it's called.  I think the developers must have had ambitions to replace all the shops in America.  Certainly, people fly in to the local airport for shopping sprees.  It's so big, I have to note down where I parked the car.

          But I got what I wanted, and it was a good bit cheaper than Walmart.  And I had lunch in a Japanese restaurant.  There were lots of groups of young girls mopping about, practicing being ladies.

 

         Then I went to the cinema to see "District 9".  It is a science fiction, boys' 'crash-bang-wham' picture, painted over a thinly-disguised criticism of the South African Apartheid regimes.  Essentially, the story is a great big build up to a sequel (I'm guessing "District 10"), with considerable use of 'deus ex machina' as a plot device.  But most films are like that.  Perhaps it's the only way they can cut them down to size in the time available ("with one mighty leap, Jack was free"). 

          There were some very charitable grown-up ladies in the audience, indulging their menfolk: I hope they were well-rewarded later.

Friday 4th September 2009 - Getting Organised for Phase Two

          I've now collected the documents I can for the Immigration Service.  I'm much impressed by my host's PDF printer: I send documents to it and it produces a PDF file which I can email looking exactly like a printed document.  I must get myself one.

          I had to go over to the Mazda dealer to see to a few things for Rozzie.  There was a Friday's next door, so, it being Friday and all, I had fish-and-chips.

 

          But the big event was going to the State Fair (again) to see Garrison Keillor in " A Prairie Home Companion".  It was held in what they now call "the Grandstand", which is (as you would expect) the grandstand of the old car-racing oval.  The Minnesota State Fair is an enormous thing, and the (permanent) fairground stretches over miles.  The bus companies run special buses from all over.

          There must have been six or eight thousand people come to see APHC, which will broadcast on Public Radio Saturday evening and Sunday Lunchtime.  It's a good show.  Keillor says it's now on the BBC, so I expect the Brits are enjoying it too now.

 

          The show runs for two hours on the radio, but the performance took about three hours, so it was much to late for any later that evening when I got back.

Thursday 3rd September 2009 - Changing a Library Book

The venerated book on Minnesota place names is Upham's "Minnesota Geographic Names". It's the one that says Glasgow Township got its name "...there being several Scotchmen in the town, and the first settler being a Scotchman". Upham was a geologist for various state organisations, and also held several positions in the Minnesota Historical Society. The society produced a new edition (virtually unchanged) of his book in 1969. In it, the then Librarian described him as a "pedantic precisionist and formalist, of infinite old-world courtesy".
Upham got his information, apparently, on his geologing travels, simply by talking to people. I can confirm that that is a very pleasant way of doing things. And shows what people remembered when Upham was doing his stuff.
But the "scotchman" (the Scots object to that, by the way, I'm not sure why) was actually one Hugh McGowan, born in Glasgow in 1813, and emigrating to Nova Scotia in 1830, just when Glasgow was descending into a public health nightmare. By fits and starts, he made his way to southern Minnesota, ending up as the first white settler, in 1855, in what became Glasgow Township. This is asserted in his obituary, which appeared in the Wabasha Herald of February 13th 1896, when these events would still have been in living memory.
So this Glasgow, which I nearly missed, and has no physical or institutional existence, really was named after Glasgow Scotland, by an emigrant.

Wabasha hosts the National Eagle Centre. If you want to sit up close to a real, live eagle while it crunches through a baby chicken, this is the place for you. They have several Bald Eagles (which aren't bald) and a Golden Eagle. They are awesome birds.
It is common, out in the country here, to see big birds floating in circles on the thermals.

[6392}

People refer to them as "TVs", Turkey Vultures. The Centre had a big wall chart showing all the birds of prey: "Why", I asked one of the Keepers, "is the Turkey Vutlure not here?" "Well", he said, "it's not a bird of prey". Yeuch!
The Centre is right on the Mississippi. There is a viewing platform, for watching out for wild eagles. As I stood out on it, a 'tow' came by. I'd heard a lot about them, but this was the first one I'd seen. It was immense. Twelve huge barges lashed together, with a tug at the back, pushing them (despite their name). It must have been 50-60 feet wide, and several hundred feet long. I expect it was the maximum size the minimum lock would hold. I forgot about the eagles.

While I was spinning through the reels of Wabasha Herald editions, I somehow managed to stop at February 22nd 1893. It recorded, in a very short paragraph, "The decline in Reading Railroad stock has caused a commotion on Wall Street". This 'commotion' turned into the great panic of 1893, which put paid, it is said. to the prospects of Glasgow, Virginia, becomong the great railroad town of the south.
Glasgow VA is where I am going next week.

Wednesday 2nd September 2009 - A Quick Tour Round the Township

Since there is no actual Glasgow MN to go to , I took a quick trip down to Wabasha, the county town of Wabasha County; a nice quiet run down old roads along the banks of the Mississippi. This took me past Lake Pepin, where the river widdens out. It's sufficiently wide to freeze over in the winter and let the river flow underneath. There is a lot of ice fishing here. It's tourist country, so not cheap. Wabasha was one of the first river towns, and the main street has that nineteenth century small-town look about it. They are preparing for Octoberfest (no doubt as a way of extending the season. The preparations seem to involve hanging a German flag from every lampost.

I took a tour round GLASGOW township, but, in truth, there is not much to see. Gravel roads and isolated farms:

[6378]

wooded hills and cultivated valleys

[6382]

at least one abandonded house

[6388]

but mostly places to avoid

[6385]

I did find Dumfries, which used to be a depot on the narrow-gauge railway which followed the Zumbro river valley. There were still a few houses there.

[6390]

Later that night found me in the famous Slippery's, which figured in "Grumpy Old Men". It's right on the Mississippi. I had an unexpected sighting of the Queen Mary docked there.

[6396]

Despite there being few people in the bar, we managed to generated some quite heated discussion. Then the Canadian Pacific Railway gave me a lift home.

Tuesday 1st September 2009 - What a Library

When the election boundaries of Wabasha county, Minnesota (it's easier to say it if you put a 'w' at the end - wa-ba-shaw; it is a native American name, the syllables all having equal emphasis) were set up in 1858, Township 110 North of the Clarenden baseline, in range 11 west of the fifth principle meridian had, or was given the name "Richland". But by the time we have a second county supervisors meeting in September 1859, it has gone from being Richland, through being "Wacouta", to being "Glasgow". It is represented at this meeting by one Hugh McGowan, who may have had some influence on it's change of name. McGowan carried some burden of tragedy, having lost his wife, and the child, in childbirth in 1855. His wife was the first white woman in the county, the child would have been the first such child.
They had arrived in Wabasha county in 1855, very shortly after Wm McCracken, who is credited with turning the first sod. This ranks McCracken as 'the pioneer'. McCracken was born in Scotland on 15th August 1815, a month after the Battle of Waterloo. But if one looks at the names of the group who arrived then, it is reasonable to guess that many were Scots.
The history books have it that it was called Glasgow because there were many "Scotchmen" there. When the railroad came through, the depot got called "Dumfries". The 1940's map shows a place called "McCracken".

[6377]

So it would seem reasonable to think this place was named for Glasgow Scotland.
Trouble is, it's a township. A bit like a congressional or parliamentary constituency, it's not actually a place at all, it's just the enclosure of some lines on a map.

Americans are very apologetic about their history. They don't think they have very much of it. It unnerves them a little when I point out that they have exactly as much history as the rest of us. They just seem to have lost more of it.
But their discomfort causes them to cherish what they have. When I got to the headquarters of the Minnesota Historical Society,I couldn't believe my eyes. Well, to be precise, I thought Dulcie had got it wrong. This is no converted church hall. I half expected to have uniformed guards poking their guns up my bottom again.

[6376]

I was going to take pictures of the inside, showing the beautiful oak furniture, the custom-built microfilm racks, the restaurant, and the facsimile Curtis JN4 biplane (the famous "Jenny") hanging in the atrium, but I felt a that it would display an undignified, third-world jealousy.

So you'll just have to imagine it.

Monday 31st August 2009 - Another Library Day

I had to change my library book today.

 

A task which continued late into the night.