"Searching For Green Roots" ~ History of the Beacoms

Quoting from a 1967 booklet, "Through the Years in West Nissouri 1818 to 1967" by Ida Logan of Thorndale, ON. about the crossing from Ireland to the new world.

"For the early immigrants, the six-week Atlantic crossing was quite a hardship.  They sailed in cargo vessels which carried squared timber back to Britain.  The ship's captain put in a few temporary partitions and bunks, and jammed in hundreds of passengers, who had to look after their own needs on the long voyage.
They supplied their own bedding, dishes, food, except bread and water which the captain provided.  The cooking was done over fireplaces where much pushing and shoving occurred over turns to cook porridge, salt pork, or potatoes.  The same confusion reigned over wash basins and corners for fresh air as the quarrels raged between peopled housed in such cramped quarters.  Colds and other diseases spread rapidly among the passengers.  It was not unusual to have 40 - 50 funerals in one crossing."

~ Lulu M. Carson & M. Phyllis Thompson,
Abco Copy Cat Limited, London, ON, 1989.

"When they were around ten, eleven, thirteen," he said, "every Saturday night I would get away from my commitments and read to them.  It was our Saturday night together.  I read them Rousseau, history books, poetry, Victor Hugo.  Later, Stendhal, and Tolstoy.  We'd talk about what we read.  Read out loud to each other.  Every Saturday night for years...It was," he paused, "one of the happiest periods of my life.

Thought for Today ~

"If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity."
~ John F. Kennedy

"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock."
~ Sigmund Freud

"Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
~Robert F. Kennedy

Let's hope . . .

"No Road To Glory"

Major A. R.. Thompson "Drew"

"At a field dressing station Jones asked for rum, and someone passed him a cigarette tin full.  He gulped down the fiery liquid seeking oblivion but still he could find no ease.  Writhing, he tried to turn, and put his weight on Sowers' mangled leg.
'Lieutenant Jones here?' called a voice.
'He's inside,' answered an orderly.  'Be careful where you tread, they're all pretty bad and the place is crammed full.'
'Hello Jonsey old chap," said Church, 'your platoon ran right into that little strafe -- about eight bulls on the duck walk.  Just three of your men turned up.  They told a pretty bad story.  Jolly sent me back to find out what had happened.  What was your strength goin in?"
'Thirty-on.'
'Three arrived with whole skins; ten are lying out there dead, probably a few more drowned;  fifteen, counting you, are here; they just about wiped you out.'
'H--?' queried Jones.
'Dead, the first I saw as I come along.'
'Poor chap,' sobbed Jones, 'five minutes sooner we'd have been all clear.  We waited all to long for H--.  Tonight, which was it, chance or destiny?"

Written by Major A. R. Thompson (Drew). Major Thompson served overseas with the famous 4th Battalion, C.E.F. and was for a time brigade wiring officer of the First Brigade.  "No Road to Glory" appeared in serial form in the Canadian Military Gazette during the Second World War.

~ Canadian Military Gazette  NAVY -- ARMY-- AIR FORCE, Established 1885.

[In the days leading up to November 11, The Neat Little Bookshop will follow one soldier's story in the first World War.]

Information Processing

Neologism:  "The key phrase, 'information processing,' was coined by Marshall McLuhan, who was asked by IBM to explain to them, in succinct language, what computers are all about,"  according to Peter Bishop in Fifth Generation Computers (1986).

"The microchip will take its rightful place among history's four greatest inventions--the others being fire, the wheel, and hotel room service." ~ Peter C. Newman, Canadian Journalist, "The Dawn of a New Millennium." Maclean's, 30 Dec. 1996.

"In terms of, say, a computer technology we are headed for cottage economics, where the most important industrial activities can be carried on in any individual little shack anywhere on the globe."  Marshall McLuhan, communications pioneer, observation made in 1970. The Essential McLuhan (1995) edited by E. McLuhan & F. Zingrone.


"Thought:  one day the word 'gigabits' is going to seem as small as the word 'dozen.' ~ Observation of the narrator of Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs (1995)."

[Source:  John Robert Colombo's FAMOUS LASTING WORDS/ Great Canadian Quotations, Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2000.

Thoughts and prayers with those mourning a loss today.

 

D-Day June 6, 1944

 

[Photo: lbw] 

One hundred and two years ago today the British passenger liner, the TITANIC, sank tragically losing 1,490 lives.  In 1912, the largest ship in the world, Titanic, was supposedly unsinkable.

Over the century, the sinking of the Titanic has crept into everyday dialogue.  British Conservative politician, William Hague said, expressing his opposition to joining the single currency, "It was inevitable the Titanic was going to set sail, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea to be on it."

Roger Morton, on losing five of the last six primaries as President Ford's campaign manager, said, "I'm not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic."

And Bob Dylan sings:
"Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And every body's shouting
'Which side are you on?'
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers."

        'Desolation Row'  1965, Bob Dylan, (b. 1941)
        American singer and songwriter, www.bobdylan.com

The Oxford Dictionary of QUOTATIONS, Oxford University Press, 2001.

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." ~ Sir Winston Churchill (Nov. 30, 1874 - Jan. 24, 1965) Former Prime Minister United Kingdom.

Black History Month ~

In 1926, Historian Carter Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced the second week of February to be "Negro History Week."
The celebration of African-American history was a popular theme. Woodson hoped that someday black history would become fundamental to American history.

Martin Luther King said,"If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, 'There lived a great people ~ a black people ~ who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.' "