ending the plague

wonder of wonders: i got my first dose of the pfizer covid vaccine this morning --- facilitated by a wonderful neighbor who just told me where to go and when --- i had to drive to alpharetta, but whatever --- second dose in three weeks and, theoretically, two or so weeks after that, i might not fear so much for my life from day to day, at least from communicable disease, although vehicular homicide of a pedestrian remains a constant threat

at last

"I suppose in this way, the past four years have been a bittersweet gift to us: a pulling away the curtains of decorum and phony civility, allowing us to see people’s hearts with clarity. We can no longer hide behind the stories we thought were true about those we love and share life with, and about the place we live. We’ve all shown what sides that we are on and the hills that we’re willing to allow relationships to die on." --- john pavlovitz

the gene pool

i think i'm nearly done with great-aunt ruby lee's jumble of photographs --- one more dead-baby picture, this one high victorian, but sadly unidentified

some great images in the collection

my great-grandparents ipson and tommie lee and offspring --- my grandma front and center

my great-grandpa's sisters, all born before the civil war --- kerron, theodosia, roxanne, and missouri

too many people remain unidentified

not fake news

so much for the new year --- 

photographing the gene pool

i have been sorting thru a bunch of photographs inherited from an old-maid great aunt --- in addition to the dead-baby pic, there is this little tintype of my g-grandpa ipson lee (1862-1930)

along with this fairly skeery one of four guys who are probably his half brothers

my g-grandparents ipson and tommie lee, taken easter 1920 --- they're standing at the end of the front porch of their house, which i remember seeing in its decrepit final years fifty years ago --- in the far background at left is the only image i've found of the house that his father, john lee, built in the 1840s --- part of the chimney may or may not remain in the twentieth century house that now stands on the site --- all on washington road in what is now southwestern side of east point

there are many others, including this one of my ma and her sister with bob the dog, ca 1925

i'll get the most of them posted to the gene pool soon
 

bifurcated times

even drudge is lit about all the sedition and what not --- really and truly unbelievable
 

as is this photograph of my first cousin, twice removed, as a dead baby --- i think he is harvey jefferson betterton (1885-1886)

but who has an image like this and doesn't put a name on the back or something

2020 in books ---

Neil Ansell, Deep Country: Five Years in the Welsh Hills

*Mark Kurlansky, Paper: Paging Through History (2016)

Douglas Hurt, The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830 (1996)

Marcus Whiffen, The Eighteenth-Century Houses of Williamsburg, an Architectural History (1960)

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, 1929 (1955)

Eric Jay Dolin, A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes (2020)

*Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary memories from History and the Arts (2008)

William N. Morgan, Pre-Columbian Architecture in Eastern North America (1999)

***Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent (2020)

***Edward Ball, Life of a Klansman (2020)

***Eric Cervini, The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America (2020)

*William E. Wallace, Michelangelo, God’s Architect (2019)

Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (2020)

Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (2011)

**Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Last Divine Office: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries (2009)

T. M. Devine. The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 (2019)

Ernle Bradford, The Great Betrayal: The Great Siege of Constantinople (2014)

*Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (2007)

Alistair Moffat, Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms (1999)

Alistair Moffat, Remembering Charles Rennie McIntosh (1998)

Alistair Moffat, Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History (2005)

*Alistair Moffat, To the Island of Tides: A Journey to Lindisfarne (2019)

Alistair Moffat, The Faded Map: Lost Kingdoms of Scotland (2010)

James Shapiro, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1666 (2015)

**Matthew Kneale, Rome: A History in Seven Sackings (2019)

***David Coles, Chromatopia: An Illustrated History of Color (2019)

Alistair Moffat, The Highland Clans (2010)

*Simon Thurley, Whitehall Palace: An Architectural History of the Royal Apartments, 1240-1690 (1999)

David Zucchino, Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy (2020)

*Peter Ackroyd, Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day (2019)

Peter Ackroyd, Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I (2014)

Peter Ackroyd, Dominion: The History of England from the Battle of Waterloo to Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (2019)

Peter Ackroyd, Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo (2017)

Peter Ackroyd, Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution (2015)

Peter Ackroyd, Civil War: The History of England, Volume III (2015)

***Toby Green, A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2020)