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Creative Fancy

~ Light and Dark, Male and female, Natural and Supernatural, Fantasy and Science Fiction

Creative Fancy

Category Archives: History

Locomotion

25 Monday May 2020

Posted by Rohvannyn in History

≈ 1 Comment

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bertha benz, horseless carriage, motorwagen

LOCOMOTION

What is that intriguing little horseless carriage in the photo? Its been erronously said to be a common tricycle. Not so. It is the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. This marvel is the world’s first production automobile, the first vehicle designed to be propelled by an internal combustion engine.

Bertha Benz, wife, mother, and lively mind, financed the motorwagen’s development process. She also was determined that it would be noticed by the wider world. She gathered her two teenaged boys and drove it on the first long distance road trip. Imagine heading out onto wagon ruts, determined to reach her childhood home. The motorwagen did not have gears that could propel it up hills so the boys would get off and push it. The carburetor clogged; Bertha cleaned it up with her hat pin. She used a garter to insulate wire and she fueled it with ligroin, a substance bought from a local pharmacy. The brakes wore down so she rolled up to a shoemaker. She asked him to nail leather on the brake blocks, thus inventing brake linings.

I examine the black spoked wheels of the mini motorwagen. The metal against my fingertips brings memories. First I see in my mind my brother Frank’s sporty little Spyder automobile. Just out of high school, he packed a bag, grabbed his Newfoundland dog and headed cross country. That black dog barely fit into the front seat! First south then East, through the Cascade mountains, then Eastern Washington’s dryer sagebrush country and into the colder Tamarack and pine country of Idaho and its steep mountain pass, rolling toward Montana. The pair’s destination was Saint Paul, Minnesota. Before brother reached Mom and I, one of the Spyder’s steel spoked wheels blew. Small town Montana did not have English car parts on their shelves so they spent three days waiting for a new tire to arrive.

What is it about being freed from high school classrooms and halls? Around that time I struggled through my final year. A young co-worker came home with my Mom one afternoon. We got to talking and between us dreamed up an excursion. A bicycle excursion. First of all, neither of us had a bicycle that was more than just a muscle and pedal machine- no speeds to assist us on strenuous hills. Something in the both of us needed to head out, to be free of older, demanding adults. Mom’s co-worker, Mary, agreed to hop onto a one speed, not that sturdy bike. I had a newer, sturdier bike- again, one speed. What did we agree to do on that afternoon? That the following Saturday, even if there were rain, hail, and tornadoes, we’d head to Stillwater, Wisconsin. That destination was a thirty mile distant spot on the map. We’d heard that our route would be back roads threading through farm country. We’d studied a map. Of course we hadn’t seen mention of long, leg crunching hills on the paper. Stillwater is a town on the Saint Croix river. We did make that journey. At one point we steered around a turtle. We ate squashed sandwiches and stopped at a farmhouse, bravely inquiring whether we could have a drink of water. That farm’s driveway was long, the question only asked due to our deep need. We made it back to my St. Paul home after dark. By then we were dampened by an evening shower. Exhausted but delighted with our crazy journey, we slept well that night.

Yes, one small model rains memories on my head. The old Dodge pickup that brothers drove to the county dump, the red Farmall tractor that Dad cut hay with, the dirt bikes, even the banana seat Schwinn that first taught me the thrill of wind in my snarled hair. Propulsion, human ingenuity, the wonder of mechanical parts fitting together perfectly. I hear the tick tick of Bertha Benz’s combustion engine, I hear it brought to me via our modern wizard, the computer.

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Robert Heinlein

01 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in History, Writing Opinion

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biography, Glynda Shaw, Robert Heinlein

Originally posted on on November 5, 2014 at 11:50 PM

I’m currently reading the second volume of a biography Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue with his Century by William Patterson.

It’s interesting how hard he had to fight to keep any semblance of works he originally conceived and most of his juvenile novels were evidently changed a good deal due to editorial intervention. Though always patriotic and essentially pro-military, Heinlein actually saw himself as a traditional liberal until the mid 1950s or so when he began to feel the U.S. government was drifting away from liberal values and going increasingly to the left and even enabling communism. At that point he resigned from the Democratic Party and voted for candidates whom he considered less odeous than others which is essentially what I do.

Also though he participated in some meetings and correspondence around the formation of the John Birch Society, he requested his name be struck from the membership roll quite early on because he considered the organization to be misguided and it’s leadership to be unacceptably controlling. One of many valuable takeaways for me from the book was the notion that traditional American Liberalism is really quite a bit different for what passes as liberalism today.

Most of us I think, believe more or less in womens’ rights, that people shouldn’t be enslaved, that there should be help for persons less fortunate and a lot of other essentially altruistic notionsbut there are so many radical agendas today masquerading as liberal that I’ve always been suspicious of the L-word.

Right now I’m to about 1959 in the biography and he’s written most of his juveniles by this time. One of his last, Have Space Suit Will Travel, was the first RAH book I ever red and in some ways, one of my favorites, mostly because of the discussion of space suit operation which I’ve used with other sources to design life support gear for my own stories and practical designs.

Elections

01 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Education, History

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constitution, elections, political parties, politics, voting

Originally posted on October 18, 2014 at 3:10 AM

Elections are again on the near horizon. Incumbents are going merrily along as if they should continue in what has become for many, a lifetime subsidy. Let’s not forget that not so many months ago, denizens of both parties paralyzed (our) Federal government due to their obstinate refusal to work together for compromise.

Both parties were and are at fault as well as the President. Both sides have valid points and both have glaring faults. What had been throughout the 20th Century however, an healthy rivalry perhaps with a leavening dash of good old-fashion hatred, has so far throughout the present century turned into a posture of total intractability on both sides of the political spectrum that nothing is being done.

If Senators and legislators could be taken off the clock like most other persons who refuse to work, that might be one thing. I suspect they’d find a way to compromise in order to maintain their privileged existences. Since they make the rules governing their own pay (along with just about everything else) this won’t happen. The only apparent solution is a massive infusion of new blood.

The old system isn’t working. In general I like my U.S. Senators and legislators but nobody in either house deserves much credit for making our government work. Let’s oust incumbents and give new folks a chance. Let’s try more folks from beyond the legal (frarority—cool word what?) Let’s send a strong message that however divided ideologically, our leaders must hammer out compromises or be fired. Also in 2016, let’s try to elect someone with at least Centrist pretensions? The transition from Bush II. To Obama has seen a continual and maintained widening of the political rift, only the polarity has changed. This is not adequate or acceptable!

Scottish Independence

01 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Rohvannyn in Education, History

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great britain, History, scotland, scottish independence

Originally posted on September 19, 2014 at 12:30 PM

I should be remiss if I did not offer a few words regarding yesterday’s referendum on the issue of whether Scots should once more have their own nation.  Sometime I;n the early ‘80s I heard the Late Jeannie Redpath perform on the NPR radio show Prairie Home Companion.  I don’t recall what she sang but at one point she said of a particular piece “There are man Versions of this song.  There are English and Irish and Scottish Versions.  So now we’ll start right at the bottom with an English Version.”  This occasioned from her Minnesotan audience a vast amount of clapping and cheering. “Oh,” Quoth Jeannie, “That’s wonderful!  Would you like to come home with me and start the Third Jacobite Rising?”

What what we’ve been hearing about over the past few months, the Third Jacobite Rising with yesterday’s attendant failure?  Not really.  The term Jacobite refers to Jacobus, Latin for James, in this case James II of England and Scotland, one of the last Stewarts to rule.  He was deposed in 1682 in favor of his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange and hence the Irish Orange and Green conflict.  Jacobitism was not only a movement to restore Scottish rule Specifically Stewart rule, but also to restore Catholicism as the faith of the land in Britain.

When in 1707 England and Scotland formed a union, adopting The Union Jack as their common flag, it was done in royal and parliamentary circles with no reference to the peoples of the land Scots or English.  A Jacobite rebellion ensued in 1714 and another in 1745, more royal manipulating to be sure but the outpouring of support they garnered from the common folk on both sides of these conflicts showed the strong feelings of the peoples affected by a system imposed from above.

To be fair, the rebellion of 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Collodon and all that was more of a civil war than a revolution.  There were Scots standing with the British Army and obviously those ranged against them as well.  We sometimes forget that what has been represented as a bid for independence was really an enterprise of Charles Edward Stewart (whose claims appear dubious and his character even more so) to rule both England and Scotland, I.E. to impose Scottish will on the neighbours to the South.  (Sound familiar?)

No, yesterday’s referendum didn’t look anything like a Jacobite uprising, perhaps more like the old Confederacy of the American Southern States, a more idealistic movement and a conflict conducted mercifully without blood.  It failed not because anyone defeated the dream on the battlefield or imposed the outcome from thrones in London and Edinburgh but rather, because Scots themselves agreed to disagree but to accept the will of the majority.

Though touted as a quite decisive victory for the “Nos” the margin of 10 Percent being given by the news pundits, the victory may not be as significant as first impressions might indicate.  Firstly, when we’re told that a measure wins or loses by a margin of 10 percent, it’s not always clear what this means.  Did 10 % more of the voters vote one way than did another, (55 to 45) or were there 10 % more folks voting one way than the other? (more like 52.4 to 47.62.  Let’s be generous though and assume that 55 Scots voted for continued union with Britain against 45 voting for independence or secession.  What does this actually look like?  Shrunk down to ten people in a room we have 5 persons fully for Union, 4 persons for Independence and in between, one person unable to make his or her mind up which way to go.  All’s needed is to change half a mind in order to declare a draw.  Hopefully both English and Scots will bear this in mind because the matter appears closer to me than others may find it.

Though the referendum failed and I must say I am saddened by that; I am in another way cheered because for the first time in 307 years Scots have been given to choose for themselves what the nature of the country in which they will live shall be.  They stay within the United Kingdom by their ayne sufferance, three hundred years from the Great Jacobite rising of 1714 and a decision made without fire or blood or steel.  Scotland forever but also God bless Great Britain!

Glynda Shaw

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