More, please!

The following essay was written by my wife.  She is an excellent writer, in my not-so-humble opinion.  I feel like I'm at the house she writes about and yearn with her, in her desire for more.  Enjoy...

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The James. J. Hill House was built in 1891 for James J. Hill, his wife, Mary, and their eight children. They also had one married daughter and a daughter that died in infancy. Hill came to St. Paul from his childhood home, in Ontario in 1856, when he was 16 years old. He began work as a clerk on the St. Paul levee. After working in shipping for twenty years, he and others bought two bankrupt railroad companies. Over the next two decades, he built the Great Northern Railway. Hill also had many other business interests. He became known as an “Empire Builder” and had an estimated personal fortune of $63 million. He is one of the 40 wealthiest people of all time.

It took three years and just under $1 million to build Hill's home. It is a 36,000 square foot house built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It has 5 floors; which include, 22 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, a servants quarters, eight children bedrooms, a large school room, a picture gallery, many crystal chandeliers, and elaborately carved woodwork, that took over 32,000 hours to carve. The formal dining room had a 25 foot table, leather walls, and a gold ceiling. The basement is made of marble walls and floor. It has a state-of-the-art, for the era, laundry room. Encompassing a large part of the basement, is the very large broiler room where the Hill family went through 200-250 tons of coal per year.

Through James J. Hills house, we are able to get a picture of that time in history. Some of the details throughout the house give us this picture. In the art gallery, there is a wall sized, built-in, 1006 pipe, pipe organ. When the architects were designing the house, they told Hill that anybody who was anyone out East had a built-in pipe organ. Back then, having live music being played in the house during a dinner party showed a level of prestige and riches. Now, most households don't even have a piano. The kitchen is in the basement because it was bad etiquette for guests to smell their food while waiting for it. There was a butler's staircase hidden behind a screen in the dining room so that the food could be brought up and served to the guests. In that time, wealthy house did not have living rooms. They had a library where the family spent the evening reading, doing puzzles, or studying. Another area that stuck out to me was the master bedroom. Mary and James each had their own bedrooms. That was common for the time. If Mary was dressing in her room, she did not want James's butler to see her; and likewise, if James was dressing, he did not want Mary maidservant to be there.

Another way to view history through the Hill house, would be in the way it is built. On the third floor is an electric box. Inside it you can see wires coming into boxes on the top side and going out on the bottom. This was the old direct current (DC) electrical system, in which electricity could only run one direction through each wire. During the building of the house the world was discovering alternating current (AC) which would allow electricity to flow both ways through one wire. Hill demanded that the DC electrical system be abandoned and the AC put in instead. Another electrical issue of the time was the lack of a dimmer switch. Hill wanted a theater upstairs that would have the ability to have the lights dimmed. Without a dimmer switch, they used a copper coil that was connected to the source of power. When the light was dimmed, the extra electricity would back up into the coil. When the historical society gained possession of the Hill house, modern electricians wanted to see these two electrical systems of the 1800s. Another historic feature of the house is the woodwork. The James J. Hill house was built at the beginning of the Arts and Crafts movement. During that time, something called quartersawn wood was used in decorating. The most expensive, was quartersawn oak. Everything in the Hill house, except the dining room and servants quarters were done in quartersawn oak. The dining room was made with carved, Virgin Island Mahogany. The servants quarters were made with regular pine wood. This shows not only the era that the house was designed in but also, the separation between the servant class and the family.

In 1978, the Minnesota Historical society acquired the James J. Hill house. They offer 75 minute guided tours of the house and host special events. Throughout the house, they have a small handful of furniture pieces that were the Hill's original furniture. It doesn't amount to a lot, but knowing that every chair that you see was used by the Hill family is better than seeing a staged place with unrealistic items. They also have a few artifacts on display. Letters form servants, menus made by Mrs. Hill, Tiffany's silverware, candelabras, paintings, personnel items, and more. Because they don't have a lot of things to look at, the tour is mostly focused on the makeup of the house. The tour guides know a lot about the structure of the house and can tell you minute details, down to the how many times the architect’s initials appear on the woodwork. At one point during the tour we watched a video on Jame's J. Hill life, business endeavors, and personality. That helped us understand more about why James had the house built like he did. They also have historic books and information available for purchase. The guides were also able to include personal little stories and facts about the Hill's. James liked an onion sandwich for a midnight snack, Mary sewed a cover closed over a racy book of Mr. Hill's, because she did not want the children seeing it, and Walter got in trouble for collecting his junk in the artillery closet. The one thing that really got left out, was a tour of the whole house. We are never able to see the five daughters wing of the house on the second floor, or the whole servants quarters on the third floor. The tour guide made several mentions of the historical societies offices behind closed doors and talked about a Nooks and Crannies tour where you can see more. We were given a pamphlet that has the house layout on it, but there is a lot of house that we didn't get to see. I wanted to know if the girls area was a different look then the rest of the house. Were the servants bedrooms like cells or were they at all luxurious? The tour is only 75 minutes and you are not allowed to walk freely through the house. I would have liked to walk around a little more but wasn't allowed.

While enjoyable, I was left wondering what the focus of the tour should have been. Because they did not have many artifacts and furniture, you weren't taking the tour to see what the Hill life was like. Aside from the short video on James Hill, we didn't really learn a lot about the family or all of James's businesses. Because so much of the houses square footage was left out, you are not able to get a feel for just how big and grand it is. The tour ended up being something that wet my appetite to learn more about the Hill's but I didn't really leave having learned enough of any one thing about James J. Hill or his family.

I Fear the Worst

Last Sunday evening, I was invited by a good friend (I'll call him George) to hit some softballs at a local batting cage.  Being that the softball season in Minnesota is approaching quickly, I jump at any and all chances I can whack a few.  I want to make sure my swing is in better form than last year and maybe even hit one out of the infield during the season.  I'm too old to run hard to first base anymore.  That's for the young kids.

We each bought three tokens which gave us an average of twenty machine-pitched balls per token.  Then we jumped into the cage.  George had a great swing that day and knocked only two balls into the turf and one or two would have been pretty easy pop-ups.  Other than that, he was quite impressive.  Then it was my turn. I also had a great swing.  My stance was balanced, I twisted with my eyes locked on the contact and my head stayed straight with the swing.  I even squished the bug.  I'd say about 85% of the hits were decent enough to get me to first base.

When I was done, lathered up and feeling good, I left the cage so George could use his second token.  But, being the nice guy he is, he had let half a dozen people in front of him.  So we had to wait.  About ten minutes later,  George suggested we jump into the 45 mph fast-pitch softball tunnel.  I obliged, having never done that before and ready for a good challenge.

George's session was terrible.  The pitched balls seemed to be either too high or too low but never just right.  He swung through some, ticked a few into the cage behind him, beat a bunch into the ground, and walked away with about three or four solid hits.  I watched him and decided that I would have a horrible time catching up with this new speed and angle.

To the contrary.  I let one ball past to get the speed, widened my stance, and switched my brain into timing mode, rather than mechanics and sighting the balls arch.  I caught up with the second ball and creamed it into the far net.  I missed one or two, but for the most part, I would have been drafted into the minor leagues immediately.  I was a pro.  My heart was beating faster and adrenaline was coursing through my veins as I got prouder and more self-confident in my ability to compensate and be the best of the best.

It was over too quickly.  But, by that time, the line at the slow-pitch tunnel had disappeared and it was open.  George jumped in first and missed the first ball, then beat three or four into the turf.  He looked back at me and laughed, saying that the 45 mph tunnel had ruined his swing for the entire season.  But, the awesome hitter he was, he caught on to his old form and ripped the rest of the pitches into space. 

It was my turn and I was ready.  Still pumping with adrenaline and feeling like pretty hot stuff, I stepped up to the plate.  The ball was pitched, I watched the arc, watched the point of contact, paid attention to all the mechanics....and missed.  I missed!!!!  I miss a softball about twice a year.

So, I shook it off and waited for the next pitch.  I missed, and missed again, and again, and again.  I swung through seven or so pitches before I decided I needed to bunt in order to actually feel contact again.  I missed the bunt.  I was yelling and laughing at the same time.  I looked back and George was dying.  He had a professional softball coach beside him and they were both shaking their heads, saying they had never seen anything like it.

Then the pro started yelling pointers.  I did everything he said.  And missed, and missed......and missed....and missed.  I dialed my eyes into a better position, feeling the blood shot veins pop out, making it difficult for my lids to blink....and missed, and missed again.  I bunted...and I hit one!  Then I missed.  I focused hard on the arc, the flight, the bat, the speed, the sounds of the place, the smells, anything and everything that might increase my senses and get me back to where I had been only fifteen minutes before.

And I missed. All twenty pitches and I had exactly one hit, and it had been a lousy bunt.  I finished, hanging my head.  All the girls, hundreds of them, who had sided up to the fence and had ogled at my previous success were gone.  The younger players who had drooled at my form and hitting prowess, wishing they could have the slightest iota of my talents had disappeared.  The professional coach was disappearing through a doorway, noticeably shaking his head.  The place was empty.  I felt like I was a New York Yankee who had just been traded to Kansas City and then summarily released, only to be picked up as the future of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

George was trying to be nice and not laugh.  He suggested I buy more tokens - the funniest thing he had said all day.  We built a scenario of me popping token after token into the machine missing hundreds of balls, solidifying my fate for the rest of my life.  It was better to just leave, shake off the 45 mph distraction and come back to kill the ball a week later.

I just hope nobody is there when I miss the next thousand.

Qualifying My Reserved Excitement For US Action In Libya

In this post, I will not be addressing the Constitutionality of the United States going to war without the approval of Congress.  I admit that I need to study that more and desire to look through history and see how we have treated our entanglements without the people's consent.  I know we have.  Secondly, I am not going to address the right of the United Nations to use their power to coerce our sovereign nation into full scale battle.  I dislike the United Nations thoroughly and would that it never existed as it is now.  I find it to be full of mushy minds, uninterested in reality and deep thinking.  But, again, that's for another post.

What I want to convey here is my happiness at what America is doing in Libya.  I disagree with President Obama's assertion that it was necessary for us to go to war to protect the freedom of people in general.  I don't think that is our right - to be meddling in the affairs of a sovereign nation, merely because we disagree with the current policies. 

Sure, Qaddafi  was killing his people and is a defiant, ruthless pig of a human being.  But, in many ways, so was Stalin.  We used him for an ally in the second world war.  So also is the royal family of Saudi Arabia, frequently enforcing Sharia law which includes lashings for raped women and the cutting off of hands for those that steal.  If we want to have a discussion about freedom, we need to entangle ourselves on many fronts.  Heck, we should attack the aforementioned as well as China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, half the continent of Africa, and Antarctica to protect the freedom of the melting ice.  If we policed the world with the "freedom" philosophy - or better wrapped up with a bow - American democracy for all, we should never stop.

But, even though Obama qualifies our action in Libya as a protection of freedom for its citizens, I am still happy we have entered the fray.  For the simple reason that they asked.  Yes.  They asked!

A rebel spokesman, Mustafa Gheriani, said the following:

"We are telling the west we want a no-fly zone, we want tactical strikes against those tanks and rockets that are being used against us and we want a strike against Gaddafi's compound."

That is exactly what we are doing.  Sure, they are not a sovereign nation per se, but France recognized the rebel "government" in Benghazi as a legitimate nation.  After all, France assisted the United States in our quest for freedom from England during the Revolutionary war.  And most of what they did was just to shell British strongholds from the sea. Also, during the American Civil War, England and France assisted the South by building them ships under the radar and flirted with a larger entanglement, including almost starting a second front by invading the Union from Canada. Help for the South only soured after Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively stabbing a proverbial dagger into the heart of the rebel cause, being that the world abolition movement had nearly erased slavery from all corners of the western world.  Can we say brilliant?

I am convinced that if America was attacked and we requested assistance from the world, we would weep as our countrymen fell on the field of battle while the other nations of the world argued on principle. Even if the attack was from our own government and the request for assistance was from the "rebel" cause.

We have the means.  They asked.  We answered.  Let's get in, get it done, and then get out, letting them build their new country as they see fit.  If they want democracy, more power to them.  If they want a broken network of non-flush toilet tribes, then so be it.  I look forward to the afterglow of our latest entanglement.