The weather disagreed with sailing again on Tuesday.
Since I’m trying to keep up the practice of publishing something that makes
sense and is somewhat proofread the plan is to write about George Washington, beer,
and the Detroit Tigers in some sort of order. In the end I hope to tie them
together into something worthwhile to read.
Rhelia and I woke up to bad weather in St. Joseph.
That combined with missing the trailer plate for the boat meant that we wouldn’t
try to go out on the Lake. I hope that sometime next week I have the opportunity.
This has been a strange summer in weather.
Instead we went out to breakfast at one of the best
and cheapest place in St. Joseph eat in the morning, Thornton’s downtown café.
We both had their breakfast burritos and hash browns with coffee and the total
was less than $15. It’s located downtown and yet has a small town feel.
Compared to other places that tuned so much to the tourist trade it really
feels more like how my hometown used to be.
Jean Klock Park is the best kept secret for as beach
in town. Years ago my family used to go there and it was sight of some my
favorite memories from when we had our boat, The Bear Lady (mom had a sense of
humor.). Whenever I used to have to donate Plasma for some extra money my first
couple of years in Kalamazoo, I would think back laying in on the sandbar in the
water by beach to keep my blood pressure down.
(Of course the blood pressure would shoot right back
up again if the lab tech who loved the Alvin and the Chipmunks so much he was a
fan club member was “sticking” me. One day he stabbed me four times as he
talked about how much he loved the “Squeak-quel,” but really that is an another
story completely)
But to continue, Jean Clock Park is great. There are
public restrooms and showers, great sand and very few people. It was run down
years ago, but since the golf course was built nearby they have reshaped the
sand.
We sat by ourselves surrounded by seagulls that left us alone. In
addition to getting sun and swimming this allowed me to get major work done in
reading Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys
biography like I do. In reading it, Chernow doesn’t sugarcoat Washington’s
shortcomings as a slave master or failings as a general. However at the same
time he doesn’t shoot for ruining completely the character of “The father of America.”
While movies, popular culture, and history channel documentaries
have brought to life other historical figures such as John Adams with a HBO
mini-series, Abe Lincoln winning an Oscar and as a Vampire Hunter, and FDR in
movie starring Bill Murray, Washington has remained
boring and someone I never really thought I could connect with. The image of
Washington chopping down a cherry tree and “never telling a lie,” are ingrained
in our culture, but if asked in present day who Americans feel the best
Americans in History are, Washington has had a fall down the list for a hundred years.
This book has changed some of that for me. It is
broken up into six parts concerning his youth, time in the French and Indian
wars, Revolutionary War, time as a statesman, President Terms, and time retired before death. I am just getting to the parts before he is elected, and the Constitution
goes into law.
The book is not the best Biography I have ever read,
that would go to Edmond Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. David McClullah’s
John Adams would be second. However, so far in my reading I would put
Washington: A Life third on my very informal list.
The clouds broke around 2 p.m. Rhelia and I took a
break from reading. She finished Devil in the White City yesterday and didn’t
like it, I have to agree, while it was entertaining it was written too much
like a novel and the combination of murder and Chicago architecture information
while interesting, was clunky. We decided to take a walk on the beach.
For further reading check out part 2 of my blog
about beer and the Tigers, coming soon.
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