Happy Thanksgiving

...Well, I guess I should have mentioned that I'll be "off" (mostly) today and tomorrow, and then the weekend. I'll post the "Baker's Dozen: Leica Lenses" on Monday.

And of course today it's Thanksgiving in the U.S., so I want to wish Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating today.

Thanks for the discussion, two days ago, in the "Fixed Object" post. It might be an all-time highlight for wonderful, thoughtful comments across a wide spectrum of responses. Grateful thanks to everyone who commented. I haven't even finished posting all of them yet.

The above is not a photograph. It's just a snapshot, because it's just informational. I wanted to show you the new campfire pit that my friend Dave Standish made for me. It's just what I wanted, country-style, stout but not perfect. This shows the maiden fire, the first one I had after the mortar set.

Here's Dave, at work encasing an old concrete chimney flue in stone. You can see that the mortar is still wet in the top courses of stone. Dave and I have had some very interesting discussions about "anonymous craftsmanship" which I'm sure will float to the surface on TOP sooner or later. He doesn't sign his work or collect records of it. When I asked him about that, he said "I know where it all is." He's a neighbor, too—he farms cattle and poultry and grows vegetables and fruit trees in the high meadows up Welker hill from me. He raised the turkey we'll be eating tonight.

I've always loved craft for craft's sake, and Dave is a great craftsman. He's an old-fashioned stonemason of a kind whose numbers are dwindling. He apprenticed for more than 20 years. He told me he knew his apprenticeship had ended when the taciturn old master he worked for contemplated something he had done and after a long silence said, "good as I could do." Dave's skill is great and his work is beautiful.

So what does this have to do with Thanksgiving? Well, I've mentioned several times before that I and my brothers and cousins are descendants of a Mayflower pilgrim, William Bradford. And Dave is a descendant of Miles Standish, who also made the two-month crossing of the Atlantic against the wind in the Mayflower, that crowded and leaky square-rigged, beak-bowed merchant ship that was nearing the end of its service life. Tonight I'll be having Thanksgiving dinner with Dave and ten other local friends at our friend Leslie's house in the woods. I just think it's kinda cool that both of our however-many-times great-grandfathers also ate together at what is called "The First Thanksgiving," at the English settlement of Plymouth, in what eventually became Massachusetts, A.D. 1621.

Hope you have a good one. Remember to count your blessings.

Mike
(Thanks to Dave)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Tom Burke: "Happy Thanksgiving, Mike! I reckon that your descent from William Bradford makes you an honourary Yorkshireman, given that he hailed from Austerfield which was then in the West Riding of Yorkshire. (These days it’s in the Metropolitan District of Doncaster, in South Yorkshire—the Ridings were abolished in the 1970s.) So if you ever make it to the Broad Acres, think of it as a homecoming. Looks like the Parish Church (where William Bradford was baptised) is still there. Obviously in his adult life he fell out of sympathy with the evolution of the Anglican Church and became a Separatist, which lead eventually to his participation in the Mayflower voyage. Which you would probably regard as a Good Thing! (I don’t know if you know this, but a Separatist was someone who wanted to separate themselves from the established church in England because they regarded it as too corrupt to save. The laws in force then effectively forced Separatists to leave the country. A Puritan, on the other hand, was someone who believed that ithe Anglican Church could still be Purified, and therefore stuck with it, and with England. Oliver Cromwell would be an example.)"

 

Comments

[Earl Dunbar]

As a descendant of John Alden & Priscilla Mullins, Happy Thanksgiving to you, Dave and all the other Mayflower people. And everyone else. We're all in this together.

[cdembrey]

Nice looking fire pit! (sarcasm alert) Not a bad snap, but you cut the top off of the cable reel (end of sarcasm alert).

By your definition of photograph all my paid advertising work was nothing but snaps. As an anonymous craftsman, I'm OK with that. Not being an artiste makes life easier—no mental anguish needed, doing the job is all that is required.

BTW the Embrey family were Huguenots that arrived in Virginia in the early 1600s. Some of my other ancestors were here to greet them.

[Michael Mejia]

The thread of craft inevitably emerges from those who will do the best they can.

As a decendant of those who had no idea what the sailing vessel on the horizon would actually portend, when Hernando Cortez and his Conquistadors first came to explore Mexico in 1518, Happy Thanksgiving.

[Dave Levingston]

Happy Thanksgiving, Mike. Had to mention that my wife Emily is descended from John and Priscilla Alden. There are a variety of items around her relatives' homes with the words, "Speak for yourself, John."

[John W]

I counted all the blessings today ... there were more than there was yesterday. Wish you a Wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with your friends.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Looks like you and Clint Eastwood have more in common than you may have thought....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_descendants_of_William_Bradford_(Plymouth_governor)

[MisterSparkyWestchesterNY]

Thanks for sharing!!!

[Tom Bell]

Happy Thanksgiving Mike and all our cousins across the sea. I think most of the folk on the Mayflower were non conformists who were from the Suffolk and South Norfolk areas. But happily for us Devon folk there is a Devon connection.
After setting out in ? 1620 they stayed their last night in Plymouth and stayed in what was Blackfriars. It had been a Monastery until the middle of the 16 th Century.
Happily where they spent the night on their very last night in England was that very building. You can go there now. Even better it is the home of the oldest Gin Distillery in England. Plymouth Gin is the Gin of the Navy and unlike London Gin which can be made anywhere Plymouth Gin can only be made here. It is a great tour and if you drink in the magnificent bar you are in the very room your forebears slept in all those centuries ago.
So its a great outing and quite a thing to stand where they stood ... even better with a glass of the best gin in your hand
https://plymouthdistillery.com/distillery

[Frank Petronio]

15 generations of religious fervor!

[scott kirkpatrick]

I thought Johnstons were Scots born and bred. What's with all this claiming of a more Southern heritage? My Kirkpatrick ancestors stuck it out in the Marches and Galloway a bit longer, then slowly diffused westward, through England and ireland, but it took several hundred years.

Happy Thanksgiving regardless.

[Tom Bell]

Interested in what Tom Burke said. As my mother always said ...as a devout Anglican ... “ remember it is the anglocatholic church”. I realised when travelling abroad whether in Denmark, Germany or indeed Scotland how different we were from those with true protestant zeal.
I sometimes wonder though why more didnt head north over the border to Scotland. Too cold perhaps, and too much rain!

[GJM Geradts]

Not only Clint Eastwood but one George Eastman as well!