Thank goodness for long weekends. Man, Vicksburg was a long slog. But Gettysburg made up for it. I have officially polished off Volume II.
In honor of that, a Shelby Foote anecdote:
This isn't actually my anecdote, it's second-hand -- or maybe third-hand -- told to me by a college friend. Some guy he held in fairly low esteem was trying to get some sort of history degree, and one of the requirements was a rather thorough, in-depth analysis of the Civil War. This guy decided he needed to talk to Shelby Foote for whatever reason and gave him a call to ask his opinions and impressions of -- something. I forget what. In any event, Mr. Foote was no more impressed by the guy than was my friend, for his response was, "Young man, have you READ my books? Everything I have to say on that matter is already in print."
When my friend told me this story, I (obviously,) hadn't yet read the books, but even then, my reaction was, "Well, jeez, did the guy make clear that he only had one semester to get the job done? Presumably with a full courseload of other classes as well?"
When I told this story to Not Your Average Blogger, his reaction was, "See, if I had been that guy, my response would have been, 'Old man, have you HEARD of footnotes? Because they sure are lacking in your work.' "
Needless to say, none of this is stopping me from digging into the third book. Just... not yet. I'll start in August.
In other news:
Saturday: Mowed the lawn. Sat around. Didn't do much.
Sunday: Went for a small hike by the Shenandoah. Came back and went for a dip in the community pool. (Which is a whole other blogpost about idiot parents who have no control over their demon spawn. I'll probably write that one tomorrow, after another trip to the pool.) Topped off with a few innings of college-level baseball at the local high school and phone chats with both sets of the YP's grandparents.
Monday: On Maliavale's recommendation, we went to the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and I got a few rather morbid photos of Sickles' leg and Lincoln's skull bits. I'm debating whether they are appropriate for the dining room. Maybe. Very, very small. In a dark corner. Then, on Stella Chang's recommendation, we had lunch at Thai at Silver Spring -- which was notable in that even the kid ate and digested food -- and a quick stop for ice cream afterward. We contemplated going through town and up to Lee's house at Arlington, but the YP fell asleep in the car, so we just took a car tour through town and headed home. I'm pleased to report we didn't encounter any hunger-striking roadblocks.
Today: I'm going to take a stab at getting some housework done. Not a very hard stab, though, as we are leaving shortly to take in A Capitol Fourth from the comfort of a federal building that shall remain nameless thanks to the ceaseless generosity and efforts of a lovely and inimitable friend who shall also remain nameless but is probably pretty easy to identify if you think for a few seconds. Thanks, Stella!
And that is the weekend thus far. Photos may follow, it's hard to say.
I thought about you yesterday morning. I was giving Reagan her crack of dawn bottle and on the History Channel they had a show on about Civil War honor guards and regimental banners, etc. It was so interesting!
Posted by: TigMode | July 05, 2006 at 09:38 AM