What Should Be Forgiven?

Trespasses, sins, guilt, debts, shoulds?

Palladian's version of the Lord's Prayer (evolved from a machine) struck me because of how the words "trespasses" and "trespassed" survived wholly intact:

Or father

court in heaven

shall be dining biking them,

but I will be done

on corporate as it is in heaven

give us this day ordeal the bride

and for guests are trespasses

as a brief for give those who trespassed against its

and leave us not into temptation

to deliver us from evil

for design to step forward

and glory forever,

on and.

The Lord's Prayer has appeared in English since the latter's earliest recorded times but the word "trespass" did not appear until the 16th century. Originally, we used the word gyltas which is cognate with the modern English word "guilt":

Fæder ure (ca. 1000 AD)

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum

si þin nama gehalgod

tobecume þin rice

gewurþe þin willa

on eorðan swa swa on heofonum

urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg

and forgyf us ure gyltas

swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum

and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge

ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

By the 14th century, the word had evolved to a combination of dettis and synnys, which are cognate with modern English words "debts" and "sins;" Middle English had clearly felt the influence of the Norman Conquest (1066):

Oure fadir (1384)

Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name;

þi reume or kyngdom come to be.

Be þi wille don in herþe as it is doun in heuene.

yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.

And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure synnys
As we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat han synned in us.

And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.

By the 16th century, "trespasses" had supplanted guilt, sin, and debt to give the verses we know by heart:

Our Father (1559)

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.

Amen.

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"Trespass" has an archaic meaning of sin or transgression but the word today largely means to stray into another's territory--like being "offsides" -- 5 yard penalty. The OED instructs on the origin of trespass; it is French in origin, meaning to transgress or literally to go beyond. It's odd that we use a word of French origin when the French themselves use the word debit or debt and apparently always have done so: link

The Italians use debito and the Latin Mass uses the identical concept: link

I once wrote a blog post on this topic (which originated in an Althouse comment). There is a curious convolution of monetary debt and sin in the German language (Nietzsche is involved) and I wrote about it here.

[Cross-posted with a question here]

Pure Enjoyment

Consider all the English words based around the Greek word logos--derived words like catalog, prologue, dialogue, logogram, zoology, even blog...it's a root word with countless derivatives. Logos is to words what the substance purine is to the chemistry of life.

Purine is ubiquitous and underlies a great deal of biochemistry. It, along with the even simpler pyrimidine, are the core base pairs in DNA and RNA. Purine is also the basis for a surprising number of familiar Genußmittel--things like caffeine and theobromine (the stimulant in chocolate). The German word Genußmittel is bit like Schadenfreude and has no literal equivalent--the best translation is perhaps "means of enjoyment."  Our own English word (which the French also use) is stimulant.

Of course, purines are not everything--there are also sugars, and amino acids too, which are completely different entities.  Diversity. But we owe our first taste of purine, and the apt name, to a German chemist named Emil Fischer.

Chimica Arcana

To grasp the invisible elements, to attract them by their material correspondence, to control, purify and transform them by the living power of the spirit, this is true alchemy. 

~Paracelsus (1493-1541)

Before any sort of chemical bonding was even thought of there were charts of so-called affinities.  I found this interesting chart dating from 1718 on Wiki. It teaches how the then-known "elements" combined with each other. The top row identifies an element and the columns contain those elements with which it combines. Note that sulfur (middle column) was considered the most promiscuous element, consistent with its primacy as the "soul" of matter according to alchemy. Also bear in mind that this simple chart condenses the then known science of chemisty, ca. 1718.  I like the arcane symbols and could see using some them as avatars depending on my mood:

Click to enlarge or see link above

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Here are my translations of the "elements."

Esprit acides : Acidic (acerbic) spirits

Acide du sel marin: Lit. acid of sea salt, HCl (which was thought to contain oxygen until Davy showed otherwise: link)

Acide nitreux: Nitric and nitrous acids, HNO₃, HNO₂

Acide vitriolique: Sulfuric and sulfurous acids, derived from oleum & vitriol.

Sel alcali fixe: Sodium & potassium hydroxides and carbonates.

Sel alcali volatil: Sal ammoniac, NH₄Cl, which sublimed and was endlessly fascinating.

Terre absorbante: Silicates (sand) and diatomaceous earth.

Substances metalliques: Metallic substances

Mercure: Mercury was considered to be the spirit of matter.

Regule d'Antimoine: Regulus of antimony--metallic antimony. Regulus means "little King"

Or: Gold

Argent: Silver

Cuivre: Copper

Fer: Iron

Plomb: lead

Etain: Tin

Zinc

Pierre Calaminaire: Lit. calamine stone, i.e., calamine ore. Note the French place name.

Soufre mineral: Sulfur or brimstone.  This material held a special place in alchemy, along with mercury and salt.

Principe huileux ou Soufre: The oily essence of organic substances from plants, also called the "sulfur." See the interesting discussion under Spagyric.

Esprit de vinaigre: Vinegar or acetic acid

Eau: water

Sel: Salt held a special place in alchemy along with mercury and sulfur.  

Esprit de vin et Esprit ardents: Any of the flammable alcohols derived from fermentation, e.g., ethanol, methanol, etc.

French Wit And Wisdom

Years ago while living in Cleveland, I signed up for a "correspondence course" to teach myself French. In the pre-internet days, the University of Wisconsin-Madison offered a number of such courses.  They sent me assignments which I completed and sent back through the mail.  I haven't done this sort of thing recently, but back then at least I had the feeling of connecting with a real person.

The French course had two textbooks, both written by a UW-Madison professor, Joseph Palmeri. There was a grammar book with exercises and there was a companion reader entitled French Wit And Wisdom:

The book is a real treasure. You can see how well worn mine is. It's clearly Palmeri's labor of love and reflects a lifelong harvest of pithy French wit on all of life's salient topics.

Here's the table of contents:

Click to enlarge

The book is bilingual, having the original French on the left-hand side (along with author and citation) and Palmeri's translation on the right. This is a sample page set concerning work and happiness:

The book is available on Amazon. Check out the review by his grandson: link

Titanic Centennial: at the real Café Parisien

The "Real" Café Parisien

S'il vous plaît, commentaire en français.

Another Crack In The Façade

Nobel-Prize Winning Physicist Resigns Over Man Made Global Warming. Link

Off With His Head!

"It took them only an instant to cut off his head, but France may not produce another such head in a century."

~Joseph Louis Lagrange commenting on the beheading of Antoine Lavoisier by French revolutionaries in 1794.

Letters Home: Vous sortez du secteur américain

July 18, 1953
Baumholder

Dear Mom, Dad and all,

I finally found time to answer your letter. I am over in the French Zone driving for an officer. [1] Some other outfit over here is having maneuvers and they are umpires.[2]

I got Marylou's letter answered finally too. Bonnie sent a letter but I haven't answered it yet. [3] It was a bad trip over here. It rained all the way and when it rains the roads are as slick as ice. Cobblestone roads.

I am sending some pictures along this time. That one of me standing by the bear was taken at a carnival.

This is Sat night and I am just laying around doing nothing.

Did you get that card I sent. I know this is a short letter but there is just nothing happening. Bye for now.

Love, V.

_______________

[1] After the Second World War, the French were understandably vindictive, just as they had been after the First World War. Many, Charles de Gaulle included, were perfectly willing to recreate a Weimar Germany or see Germany vanquished altogether. The draconian Monnet Plan would surely have weakened the nascent Western German economy. The Dutch, also eager to seek reparations from the Germans, proposed their own version called the Bakker-Shut Plan.

The US, meanwhile, had its own plan called the Morgenthau Plan, proposed by FDR's Treasury Secretary (see his signature under the blue seal in the photo below). Designed to neutralize any German resurgence, the Morgenthau Plan was harshly criticized and ultimately rejected.  Herbert Hoover, still active in politics, wrote in March 1947:

There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a 'pastoral state'. It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it.

To our credit, the US eventually rejected all these retributive schemes because they all risked letting a weakened Germany move further to the Soviet sphere. The "Stalin Plan" was already in force in the Eastern sector.

Our Marshall Plan trumped them all.  Interestingly, an evolved version of the Monnet Plan eventually became the seed of the EEU, which eventually became the EU.

Click to enlarge. US Silver Certificate, series 1935

[2] These were tank maneuvers.
[3] His older and younger sisters.

Easter Confessional

Probably the most ruthless thing I ever did to another fellow American happened on Easter.

The time and place: a small village in Alsace-Lorraine, the exact name of which escapes me at present. The year must have been 1991 or 1992.

We, the self-styled "Toxic Trio", comprising an attractive woman and two male admirers were sitting at a small cafe, nursing a previous evening's hangover. We conversed in a mixture of German and English as we were wont to do, though this particular cafe had a definite French vibe going and the proprietress spoke only French.

An older American gentleman entered the cafe and rather loudly ordered coffee and a couple of breakfast rolls. He took a seat in an opposite corner. We continued our own muted conversation, not wishing to give away our identities.

The man finished his coffee and on his way out he paused and, looking at the woman behind the counter, wished her (in English) "Happy Easter!" She gave back a blank stare. The man tried again but, lacking the word for Easter in French, again got nowhere. Now that's where one of the Toxic Trio could have intervened and offered some help. But we sat back, amused.

The man resorted to hand gestures: raising both hands and arms up against his head, he feigned "rabbit ears" and said to the woman: You know, "Easter, Easter Bunny!?" Again she drew a blank. The exasperated man did a little hop, which added nothing to his impression.

Frustrated, the man dropped his secular interpretation and instead extended both arms as if he were a man on a cross.

"Easter, you know, Christ, Jesus Christ!?"

Something about the similarity or universality of those words got through to her, and she finally flashed acknowledgment. The man left, apparently having made his point.

At the exact moment the American left the cafe, a German tourist poked his head in the door and demanded: "Guten Morgen! Haben Sie Espresso?"

The French proprietress just rolled her eyes in acquiescence.
__________________

Happy Easter All!

Sir Humphry Davy Also Bleached The French

Muriatic Acid: a synonym for hydrochloric acid. Muriatic † pert. to brine; ‘marine’ (acid), hydrochloric. XVII. — L. muriāticus, f. muria brine (the acid being obtained by heating salt with sulfuric acid).

Chemistry is fraught with confusing synonyms and antiquated terms. "Muriatic acid" is such an example. The acid itself was known to medieval alchemists who concocted it from vitriol and sal ammoniac (the salt of Ammon). They discovered that it (in combination with lesser parts of nitric acid) would dissolve gold--whence the fanciful name aqua regia.

We owe the modern name hydrochloric acid to Sir Humphry Davy, who also dealt a great blow to French scientific pride. Davy (1778-1829) dealt with the nature and definition of acids which was the cutting edge of chemical knowledge in his day:

French chemists, following Lavoisier, argued that all acids must contain oxygen (which means 'acid producer') and that therefore muriatic acid contained oxygen. Davy showed that muriatic acid gas was a chemical element which he named chlorine and that muriatic acid was a compound of hydrogen and chlorine (hydrochloric acid, HCl) containing no oxygen.

--Frank A.J.L. James Michael Faraday: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press (2010)

Davy gave the name chlorine to the element because of its color:

As the new compound in its purest form is possessed of a bright yellow green colour, it may be expedient to designate it by a name expressive of this circumstance, and its relation to oxymuriatic gas. As I have named that elastic fluid Chlorine, so I venture to propose for this substance the name Euchlorine, or Euchloric gas from ευ and χλωρος. The point of Nomenclature I am not, however, inclined to dwell upon. I shall be content to adopt any name that may be considered as most appropriate by the able chemical philosophers attached to this Society. link 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!

--Otto Dix Sturmtruppe geht unter Gas vor (1924)

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

     --Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est (1917)

The Germans first deployed 168 tons of chlorine gas against French troops on April 22, 1915, in what became known as the Battle of Ypres. Two days later they gassed British and Canadian troops. Retaliation occurred in kind.

Old World Wisconsin: Avant Ouisconsin!

Jean Nicolet lands at Green Bay in 1634

Every Wisconsin school child learned (and I hope still does learn) that the French were the first Europeans to explore and map that territory. The name Wisconsin derives from an Algonquian language, but there's a story of how the French invented the name: link

Author Fred Holmes waxes nostalgic for traces of les Français, already long disappearing back in 1944:

Would you see historic places, authentic relics, hallowed ground? Would you hear the French folk songs of the first settlers sung by present-day descendants? Would you like to walk in paths bordered by old-fashioned flower gardens? Green Bay has all of them. She was the gateway to the Middle West opened wide by Frenchmen whose ineradicable imprint is still discernible after the passing of nearly two centuries.

Wisconsin is cognizant of its debt to the intrepid French explorer, priest and trader. Soon to stand in the shadow of the capitol dome at Madison will be the Bedore statue of Jean Nicolet,* the first white man to come to Wisconsin, who arrived at the Green Bay entrance in 1634; in the streets of De Pere, a tablet marks the site of the first mission founded by Pere Claude Allouez in 1620; the black-robed Father James Marquette, co-discoverer of the Mississippi in 1673, is one of the two representatives of the Statuary Hall in Washington; Charles de Langlade, "the bravest of the brave," who created the first farm out of the wilderness, is memorialized by a bronze cenotaph in the city of Green Bay; "Villa Louis" at Prairie du Chien and the "Grignon House" at Kaukauna have been rehabilitated to perpetuate the high cultural attainments of the French; and two State parks--Perrot and Brunet Island--designate localities where French fur traders conducted extensive operations. 

The early French who came to Wisconsin were pathfinders rather than empire builders. They preferred to trap; to wander in wilderness solitudes, and to puff a pipe at night around the fire, while telling other loiters of the incidents and exploits of the day. Their observations on the cunning of wild animals, the ingenuity of the beaver, the wariness of the muskrat--interspersed tales of their own courage and fearlessness.  The harsh struggle for existence and the rugged outdoor life gave these people an individuality of their own.

But war shattered the silence of their woodland security. The Black Hawk episode that made a trail across southwest Wisconsin in 1832 was to hasten the decline of the fur industry's supremacy. Soldiers scouting through the brush, around silver lakes, across verdant meadow lands and along fertile valley bottoms in search of the fleeing Sacs came to realize the possibilities for developing a home in such a country of contagious beauty and wild productivity. Their letters back home stirred the East. Soon came the the New Englanders and New Yorkers--typical, farseeing Yankee stock, who were to run the governmental affairs of Wisconsin in pretty much their own way until the end of the [19th] century. The greatest advance in American history had begun to take a form that was to roll westward until the vast continent was subjected to settlement. 

Green Bay and Prairie du Chien still radiate French tone and charm. For more than a century the French influence has been fading. Those who came as soldiers and traders in colonial times turned into farmers as economic conditions changed.

Three epochs of history mark the settlement of the French in Wisconsin. Many of the first to arrive were traders and trappers who came directly from France to engage in fur trade; the second influx came mostly from the French province of Quebec just before the Civil War and became active in the lumbering industry; the third were the remnants of both groups who remained to farm, once the timber had been removed and the log drives ended. This explains the the presence of French settlements along the rivers of Northern Wisconsin.

Four generations of life in Wisconsin have not eliminated the sharp inflection given to the pronunciation of many English words; nor removed, from ordinary conversation, expressions that sound odd though literally translated from the mother tongue. Characteristic among the French-Canadian is an emphasis on the last syllable so that "Frenchman" is pronounced as "French man" and "high school" as "high school"; or they pronounce beginning with a vowel with the letter "h" so that "oil" is articulated as if it were spelt "hoil" and "air" as "hair." Among the less educated "she" is commonly used after masculine nouns,---"Mrs. Demarse said of her dull boy--'my son Dolph, she funny boy.'" Expressions that are perfect in French become awkward when translated into English, "Me, I do not know him" (Moi, je ne le connais pas)--or "You, are you crazy, you?" (Vous, etes vous fou?). Among these people I found that the parents speak the native language to their children when they do not want strangers to know what they are saying. Otherwise, English is used in conversation about the home. Less frequent every year are the occasions for songs and recitations in French at school programs and entertainments.

While the romantic, religious days are fast leaving the lives of the French in Wisconsin, their devotion, respect, courtesy and hospitality to Old World ideals continue as inherited traits. 

-Fred L. Holmes, "Romantic Days Are Fading" Old World Wisconsin (1944)
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*The statue never made it to Madison but was instead placed near the spot where Nicolet came ashore in 1634. link  The statue has since been moved to a different site northeast of Green Bay. link

Appartement: A New Word For Our Times

appartement.
noun: a real or imagined psychological discomfort caused by the expectation or anticipation of future political or socio-political events.  The term originated with specific reference to November 2010 elections but may also relate to future events (see further below under Extended Meanings).

Etymology
Appartement derives from the French word for apartment, and is preferably given a French pronunciation. The cognate English word apartment conveys the notion of "a set of private rooms in a building entirely of these".  The new word is derived from an older notion of separateness which ultimately manifests as solitary living. A paradox of appartement philosophy is an anti-communal spirit (preferring to abide alone) and this feature distinguishes adherents of appartement philosophy from earlier anti-establishment movements, for example, the hippies.

Extended Meanings
(1) Appartement philosophy began in the early 21st century as an earnest rebellion against what adherents viewed as increasingly materialist, amoral trends within United States social culture. Initially identified with a politically left-leaning philosophy, the appartement movement championed greener living, despite the need for more and more additional single person dwellings.  Appartement philosophy championed cultural diversity, indeed to the point of regarding everything and everybody as equal (but separate).  Adherents of appartement, notably white, young and affluent, actively despised cohabitation with opposite and even same sexed partners, especially if children instead of pets were involved, preferring the solitary "apart" lifestyle.

(2)  Appartement describes the existential angst of living alone in a big city surrounded by relative well being, yet having the feeling that that relative well being may unexpectedly vanish.  As a societal phenomenon, appartement sentiment first emerged as embodying independence and upward financial mobility, particularly amongst youths reaching or exceeding college age.  Appartement philosophy was best exemplified in the halcyon days of condominium speculation in the first decade of the 21st century. 

(3) Appartement sentiment describes the feeling of willful detachment that adherents may feel when contemplating great swaths of fly-over-country where people live in actual family-based units which they consider archaic.

After the November 2010 elections, fictional and real portrayals in novels, films, and television began depicting appartement adherents with growing derision and scorn.  Adherents of appartement began to be seen as an isolated phenomenon.  Paradoxically, as world events incurred to unify the United States, the appartement movement smoothly blended into the fabric of greater American society.

[Added: appartement is exacerbated by modern social networking. To some degree, people "network" at the expense of forming older, more traditional social networks such as neighborhoods]

Cinque Favole, Numero Quattro: Il Sorcetto

The fourth story is called Il Sorcetto (The Little Mouse) and speaks to the human condition of insatiable appetites.  The story is structured like a Russian Matryoshka doll: the scope of each paragraph envelops the next as we move from large to small. One moral of the story is that the grass always appears greener for everyone except for those at the very bottom. I think this is a subtle and vastly overlooked moral nowadays

One reason I'm posting these is because I'm reviewing Italian that I once knew and am in danger of losing. That language, more than any other romance language, is endlessly fascinating for me. I can move slowly across one simple sentence or paragraph, hovering over individual words and finding deep little pockets of Latinate troves. Others have the same fascination with French, but for me it's Italian, the very first foreign language I attempted to learn. I once heard that the Romans gave up on expanding their subway system because every time they started to dig, they had to call in the archaeologists, and it just took forever. Might as well dig with spoons and brushes like they do at Pompeii. I love using that analogy when picking my way through Italian text.

Years ago while living in Switzerland and travelling in France, I was in a tiny delicatessen outside of Versailles. It was lunchtime and very busy. I had taken the time to teach myself enough French to get along, being aware of how English never cuts it with the French. Others in front of me had struggled to order in English, and the woman behind the counter obliged, but with the rolling eyes thing. Right after I had ordered (in French), an older woman began ordering her grocery list in Italian.  The younger woman dutifully obliged without expression and spoke not one word in return. Now perhaps the older woman was a local and the younger one knew her; perhaps the younger woman was Italian herself- I never did find that out.  What I came away thinking with a smile was that the older woman had just laid some linguistic superiority of her own onto the younger one: I'm speaking the language closer to the mother tongue so you just hush and take it. That's what I wanted to believe anyways.

Il Sorcetto

Un re, molto ambizioso, non è mai soddisfatto delle sue nuove conquiste. Un giorno, mentre è in viaggio, vede una vasta provincia benedetta dal sorriso del cielo, baciata dal mare azzurro. Il re sospira da mattina a sera: "Oh! come sarei felice se potessi avere quella provincia!"

Nella provincia c’è una bella villa con un parco magnifico e un palazzo con le scale di marmo e i saloni pieni di mobili preziosi, di tappeti, di specchi.  Passa un milionario e sospira: "Oh! come sarei felice se avessi quella villa!"

Nella villa c’è una signora bella come una fata, la quale guarda dal balconi un vispo piccino coi capelli biondi e sospira continuamente: "Oh! come sarei felice se avessi quel bimbo!"

Sul tetto del palazzo va a scaldarsi al sole un bel micio bianco e nero; il bambino biondo lo guarda da mattina a sera e sospira: "Oh! come sarei felice se avessi quel micio!"

Il micio, dal suo posto di osservazione, vede un sorcio che entra e esce dalla soffitta e sospira: "Oh! come sarei felice se avessi quel sorcio!"

Il sorcio nelle sue gite cerca di arrivare a una forma di formaggio parmigiano sospesa a una trave e sospira: "Oh! come sarei felice se avessi quel formaggio!"

Una buona fata, la quale ode tutti quei desideri, pensa che, con la sua potenza sovrannaturale, può rendere felici sei creature, e ordine che i loro sogni si avverino.
Così finalmente il sorcio riesce a mettere i suoi dentini nel formaggio, il gatto può avere fra le sue zampe il sorcio, il bambino biondo può impadronirsi del gatto, la bella signora può adottare come figlio il bambino biondo, il milionario compera la villa della signora ed il re riesce a conquistare la vasta provincia.
     Ma ben presto la fata si accorge che si è ingannata. Il sorcio mangia il cacio, il gatto mangia il sorcio, il bimbo prende il gatto, la signora adotta il bimbo, il milionario compera la villa, il re conquista la provincia,…ma tutti quanti riprendono a sospirare per altri cose.  Uno soltanto, il povero socio divoratto dal gatto, non può avere nuovi desideri, ma tutti gli altri sono più scontenti di prima.

E cosi la fata si convince che su questa terra gli uomini, con la loro incontentabilità, si rendono infelice l’esistenza.

Here's my rendering of Il Sorcetto:

A very ambitious king, never satisfied with his new conquests, is travelling one day. He sees a vast province blessed by the smile of the sky and kissed by the blue sea. The king sighs from dawn till dusk: “Oh! How happy I would be if only I could have that province!”

In the province there is a beautiful estate with a magnificent grounds and a palace with marble steps and rooms full of costly furniture, tapestries, and mirrors. A millionaire passes and sighs: “Oh! How happy I would be if I had that house!”

In the house there is a beautiful woman. She looks down from a balcony and sees a lovely little boy with blond hair. She sighs continuously: “Oh! How happy I would be if I had that boy!”

On the roof of the building is a nice black and white cat sunning itself. The blond child watches him from morning to night and sighs: "Oh! How happy I would be if I had that cat!

The cat, from his observation post, sees a mouse that comes out of the attic and sighs:  "Oh! How happy I would be if I had that mouse!

The mouse, scurrying about, attempts to reach a piece of parmesan cheese suspended on a beam and sighs: "Oh! How happy I would be if had that cheese!"

A good fairy, who hears all those wishes thinks, with her supernatural power, that she can make six creatures happy, and orders that their dreams come true.

Thus at last the mouse manages to sink his teeth into the cheese, the cat has the mouse between its paws, the blond child gets hold of the cat, the beautiful lady takes the blond baby as a child, the millionaire buys the villa of the woman and the king conquers the vast province.

But soon the fairy realizes that she has deceived herself. The mouse eats the cheese, the cat eats the mouse, the child gets the cat, the woman adopts the child, the millionaire buys the house, the king gets the province, but soon everyone resumes their sighing for other things. Only one, the poor mouse eaten by the cat, cannot have new desires; all the others are more dissatisfied than ever before.

And so the fairy is convinced that on this earth, humans, with their discontent, make their own existence unhappy.

Meet Mr. Donald Franklin

Michael Haz jogged my memory back here when he mentioned Beaver Bay, Minnesota. The name Beaver Bay (Haz's humorous anecdote aside) dates from the days when that part of Minnesota was the western boundary of the known New World.  The commercial exploitation of beaver preceded the discovery of iron in Minnesota by at least a century and helped establish ports like Beaver Bay (and Duluth) before the days of lumber, grain, and iron ore.

The French were the first Europeans to explore inland (unless of course you believe that there were Vikings in Minnesota). The demand for beaver pelts drew the fur trappers because fierce competition had depleted the beaver populations in the east. The French trappers and traders, known as Voyageurs, expanded their range into the northwest territories of North America. The "Land Of 10,000 Lakes" is hardly an exaggeration and the woods of Minnesota were rich in beaver and other pelts. A canoe/portage  route across the lakes paralleling the modern Minnesota-Ontario border had been known to the Indians for centuries who then showed it to the French. That same route along the chain of lakes is now known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Voyageur National Park.

When I was kid we got National Geographic magazine.  I recall being shown a photo in one issue of a fellow named Don Franklin. Franklin had been part of a historical research team looking for relics and artifacts.  I can't find a link to that National Geographic story but I did find this story written by a historian describing the discovery of some copper pots by a waterfall [it's a pdf file and takes a few seconds to download]. The story corroborates some of what I recall, including a mention of Franklin's role.

According to my dad, Franklin changed his life forever when he saw him swim across the Richland Center community swimming pool using a pair of newly invented rubber swim fins (flippers) sometime back in the 1950's. Franklin was several years older and was a friend of my dad's older brother, J.  I met him around 1975-76 on one of our trips up there.  He worked for Reserve Mining Co. at Silver Bay MN.  He's dead now too as are many of the diving pioneers of the North Shore of Gitche Gumee.

Photo of Don Franklin dated June 1962 taken by my dad. They're probably just a few hundred yards from Highway 61. Note the primitive gear and single tank.