Post-holiday postmortem

Our family just returned from 12 days travelling in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. Here are some photographic highlights.


Among other places we visited Colonial Williamsburg, the seat of government for the Virginia colony between 1699 and 1780. The city was named for King William III of England, who reigned from 1688 to 1702. The above reference to his sister-in-law and successor, Queen Anne, is inscribed over the door of the Capitol, which housed the bicameral legislature, consisting of the elected House of Burgesses, the lower chamber, and the appointed Council, the upper chamber.


The pre-1801 Union Jack flies everywhere in the historic district of this city. This flag reflects the union of England and Scotland in 1707 (and, earlier, the personal union of the two kingdoms in James VI and I), but not the subsequent union of Great Britain and Ireland 94 years later. Consequently the flag above lacks the red diagonal Cross of St. Patrick.


I was privileged to be part of a re-enactment of three court cases in the Couthouse on Duke of Gloucester Street. Actors were chosen from the audience to participate in real cases from the historical records. I was one of the jurors (above left, wearing three-cornered hat). It was a fascinating look back to an earlier form of our own contemporary justice system.


We visited Mount Airy Mansion, once the home of Benedict Swingate Calvert, the natural son of Charles Calvert, the 5th Lord Baltimore. It is located in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, not too far from Washington, DC.


Here is the plaque outside Mount Airy, describing its historical significance.


This has nothing to do with our travels, as I took the above photo after our return home. It portrays the only dance studio in Canada with a drive-thru, an innovation that is, admittedly, unlikely to catch on elsewhere.

Tram travel back on track?

If conservative political activist Paul Weyrich had his way, we'd all be riding the streetcars again. As a former resident of Toronto, where I happily rode the subways and streetcars for two years without the burden of an automobile, I heartily agree. Of course, not all of his fellow conservatives, especially those of a libertarian bent, will approve, but many will. Here in Hamilton we can only hope that our own Hamilton Street Railway will once again live up to its name.

Michiana holiday

Last week Nancy and I took a brief holiday in southwestern Michigan and northern Indiana. I spent nearly 7 years in the Michiana region while a graduate student at Notre Dame, so this was a return to familiar territory. Moreover I have deep familial roots in both peninsulas of Michigan, the one state in the US with which I tend most to identify.

The two of us had a wonderfully restful time in this quiet part of the world. We stayed at a bed and breakfast near Jones, Michigan, called the Sanctuary at Wildwood, which I would enthusiastically recommend as a vacation spot for anyone, especially first or second honeymooners. It's set on a large, forested property with hiking trails and a stocked pond for fishing, among other things. Here are some photographs of our stay:



This is the main house, where the owners live and where we were served breakfast:



We tried our hand at rowing. (Well, I'm the one who did the actual rowing!) This was the first time I had done so, and I caught on fairly quickly. Nevertheless, in trying to photograph some turtles sitting on the water lilies, I managed to frighten them into diving back into the water.



On wednesday we drove to Three Rivers, where we discovered a marvellous used bookstore called Lowry's Books. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the vicinity. It's located on Main Street, which can be seen below:



On thursday we drove to Shipshewana, in the middle of the northern Indiana Amish country. It's a tourist town, not unlike St. Jacob's, Ontario. But rather than hitting the shops, Nancy and I visited Menno-hof, an information centre and museum devoted to Anabaptist history. Anyone with an interest in Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, or who claim this heritage as their own, will find Menno-hof fascinating. I had heard about Shipshewana while living in South Bend, but I never got round to visiting it until now.





We saw a lot of these during our visit. Special lanes are reserved for horse-drawn buggies along the roads, but in my estimation they are not sufficiently removed from the danger of fast-moving automobiles, which should be required to drive much more slowly while passing through these communities.



On friday we drove back east towards Ontario and found "the longest of Michigan's few remaining covered bridges." It's located north of Centreville and it spans the St. Joseph River.





We're home again. Back to preparing for the coming academic year.

A working holiday

Our family just returned from travels to the US, where I managed to visit 5 states, one territory and three airports in the space of slightly more than a week. Two weekends ago we drove from Hamilton to Chicago, passing through Michigan and Indiana on the way. We visited family on both sides. On monday, 2 July, we visited the Brookfield Zoo with my sister-in-law and her young family. I had not been there since 1983. It's definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the Windy City.

On tuesday through thursday I was in Washington, DC, to speak to the annual Civitas Summer Leadership Seminar, sponsored by the Center for Public Justice. The title of my talk was "Beyond Ideological Thinking," in which I spoke about liberalism and its alternatives. It was an enjoyable and stimulating event.



The following day our group was privileged to tour the White House, which I found to be far smaller and less impressive than I had long envisioned it in my mind. Nevertheless, it's a fascinating place, with portraits of various presidents and first ladies covering the 2-century-old walls. There were portraits of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, prompting me to wonder whether these would have to trade places if the latter becomes president.



I did not visit the Capitol building, home of the United States Congress, but I was able to photograph it from a distance. This was taken from the roof of the building housing the CCCU's American Studies Program.



Wednesday was, of course, the Independence Day holiday, so in the evening our group walked down to a spot where we were able to view the fireworks on the National Mall, which had been temporarily evacuated earlier in the evening due to a tornado warning.

Licence plates typically carry a state motto, such as New Hampshire's notorious LIVE FREE OR DIE. The District of Columbia is not a state, and as such it has no voting representatives in Congress. Thus the DC plates carry this slogan in protest:



When I first told Theresa I would be going to Washington, DC, she heard Washington, BC, assuming I was travelling once again to Canada's westernmost province. When I corrected her and she asked what the DC stands for, I responded: "the District of Columbia," to which she retorted knowingly: "I thought the C must stand for Columbia!"

Thursday afternoon I returned to Chicago and family. While in the air, my plane grazed the top of a terrific storm, which we saw from above. The thunder clouds were impressive, but the turbulence was a bit unnerving.



At the weekend we drove to Hillsdale, Michigan, home of Hillsdale College, a small undergraduate university well known in politically conservative circles in the US.



Hillsdale sells bricks to alumni, parents and supporters for $150 each to be placed in its Alumni Walk, which extends through the centre of the campus. Here are some typical examples:





Outside the Dow Center on the Hillsdale campus is a plaque containing a selection from Thomas Paine's Dissertation on First Principles of Government. Paine was anything but a conservative, but he somehow managed to slip by Hillsdale's gatekeepers with an extremely unBurkean sentiment:



We arrived home to Hamilton on monday. As usual, it's good to be back.

A positive turn for Acton

Ever since I came into contact with the Acton Institute of Grand Rapids, Michigan, I have been disturbed by its apparent tendency to view the free market as a panacea and to overextend its validity beyond its proper sphere, especially in its approach to education and the environment. However, this recent commentary by Kevin Schmiesing represents an encouraging development and could prompt a rethink on my part: The Baby Market. Writes Schmiesing:

The market is a wondrous thing. There is no better instrument for the calibration of human productivity and ingenuity to human needs and wants. But its advantages turn pernicious when it encompasses human goods that should never be reduced to monetary values.

Excellent. I hope Acton as a whole will follow Schmiesing's line of argument as it tackles other issues as well.

Chicago and back again

Earlier in the week we returned from a visit to the Chicago area and Michigan where we visited family on both sides. Here are some highlights and observations:

The Chicago area contains some 9 million people as compared to the 12 million living in Ontario, Canada’s largest province. Consequently, the 10-county metropolitan area is a huge sprawling mass of urban-suburban settlement, with not enough open spaces in between. One of these spaces is the Morton Arboretum, which is not dissimilar to Hamilton’s Royal Botanical Gardens. We didn’t get there this time, but perhaps we will during our next visit.

The Chicago area is crisscrossed with wide thoroughfares with sometimes as many as 20 lanes pouring into a single intersection. Now imagine a power outage in which an absence of traffic lights turns such an intersection into an impromptu four-way stop. Yes, we did find ourselves at one of these.

Everything in the Chicago area seems to have two-tier pricing, with lower prices for locals and higher for outsiders. This includes the supermarkets and the toll roads.

A highlight of our trip was a visit to the Field Museum of Natural History, downtown Chicago. With Theresa’s recent interest in dinosaurs, we decided to indulge this with a tour through its special exhibit, Dinosaur Dynasty: Discoveries from China. A permanent part of the museum’s collection is a complete tyrannosaurus rex (or perhaps tyrannosaura regina) skeleton called Sue.

Michigan’s unofficial motto is “Great lakes, bad roads.” Detroit, in particular, appears to be exceedingly poorly run in this respect. For those attempting to cross the Ambassador Bridge into Canada, Interstate 94 is currently closed for construction at the exit to Interstate 96, with “helpful” signs vaguely advising drivers to “Use alternate route.” Strangers are left to figure out for themselves what such a route might be. (How many returning Canadians have met a cruel fate wandering through the side streets of this dangerous city?) We decided to get off at Livernois Avenue (also in poor shape) and head north to 96. Yet the entrance to 96 is not clearly marked either, so we nearly missed it. Then there was the driver who kept running red lights in front of us. And the car which cut us off in full sight of one of Detroit’s finest, who did absolutely nothing. And. . . well, you get the picture.

Next time maybe we’ll try the Blue Water Bridge at Sarnia-Port Huron.

In the US a pocket full of change is likely to add up to a dollar or two and includes lots and lots of pennies. In Canada a pocket full of change could total ten dollars or more, but with fewer pennies. American bills are harder to tell apart. You need to keep alert to be sure you’re receiving the correct denominations.

If you’re ever in Hillsdale, Michigan, a quite pleasant place to stay is the Dow Center on the Hillsdale College campus. Very impressive. Nicely run with friendly staff. The walls are covered with pictures of eagles, to which people there seem to have a curious devotion.

Hillsdale, Michigan’s motto: “It’s the people.” To which one is tempted to respond: What’s the people?

Two more weeks before classes start. Back to work.

What I did during my Christmas vacation

For the first time in several years our family drove back to the Chicago area and Michigan to spend the holidays with relatives. Here are some highlights:

• We pulled into Jackson, Michigan, on Christmas Day, entirely forgetting that we would be unable to find food virtually anywhere on a holiday. Finally found sandwiches at a variety store called Yogi's Beer Company.
  
  
• We discovered that what we in southern Ontario call "variety stores" are called "convenience stores" in Michigan. And what Michiganders (yes, that's a word!) call "variety stores" people in our neck of the woods call "dollar stores."
  
  
• We ran into an exceedingly brief but horrific snow storm at the southeastern tip of Lake Michigan. It's called lake effect snow, and I remember it well from my years living in South Bend, Indiana.
  
  
• We saw The Polar Express, based on the two-decade-old book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg, a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's definitely worth seeing, if only for the special effects.
  
  
• I read Alexis Troubetzkoy's Imperial Legend, an investigation into the supposed disappearance of Tsar Alexander I of Russia in 1825 and his subsequent reappearance as the starets Fyodor Kuzmich eleven years later. Kuzmich died in 1864, during the reign of Alexander II. I'll have more to say about this fascinating book later.
  
  
• On New Year's Day Nancy and I were given the grand tour of the Hillsdale Academy, Hillsdale, Michigan, by my brother-in-law, Ken Calvert, who is headmaster of the school.
  
  
• We got through the border at Windsor quickly and easily. The same could not be said for those travelling into the US at Detroit. Huge lines stretched across the Ambassador Bridge. We were glad not to be going in that direction.
  
  
• We were served vodka martinis by another brother-in-law near Chicago. That's the first time I had ever had one of these drinks. I didn't finish it, but I did eat the olive.

May God's blessings rest upon everyone as we enter a new calendar year.

Pennsylvania notes

American border officials are being extra cautious these days. When we entered the US at the Peace Bridge last week, all of our documents were thoroughly scrutinized and we were asked numerous questions. We speculated that this might have something to do with a terrorist threat over the upcoming holiday weekend. Now we learn that the US Department of Homeland Security is preparing for an attack sometime before November's presidential election.

While driving through New York and Pennsylvania we noticed that most of the flags were flying at half-staff. We thought perhaps it had something to do with war-related casualties, but my father-in-law told us that they were lowered to honour the memory of President Reagan.

Speaking of flags, while we were having lunch at a little mom-and-pop diner near Meadville, Pennsylvania, about a dozen soldiers walked in wearing camouflage fatigues with US flags on their shoulders. When our Theresa saw them, she exclaimed, "Look at all the American people!" Later on, while standing in one of the cemeteries we visited, she picked up a maple leaf from the ground and then, remembering its presence on Canada's flag, wondered aloud where our flag was.

William Calvert was married to Elizabeth Deihl, or Diehl (1779-1848), whose gravestone is immediately next to his at the St. Peter's Church cemetery. As we were driving back into town after visting this site, we stopped into a small variety store owned by a Deihl. Despite Nancy's likely blood relationship to the proprietors, we did not receive special treatment.

Altoona appears to be a stronghold of Methodism. One of Nancy's cousins-in-law grew up in the Evangelical United Brethren, which merged with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1968 to form the United Methodist Church. He said that, despite the existence of some 22 Methodist churches in Altoona, their members could fit comfortably into only two congregations. This sounds like the so-called mainline protestant churches here in Hamilton.

Travels through the Alleghenies

Our family just returned from just short of a week in Pennsylvania, where we were attending two family reunions, one for my wife's family and the other for mine. The first took us to Altoona, where my father-in-law was born and grew up and where a number of Nancy's cousins and an elderly aunt still live. Altoona is snuggled in the Allegheny Mountains, making for some spectacular scenery and a remarkable 19th-century engineering feat which we were privileged to see during our stay.

Nancy's great-great grandfather, Michael Henry Calvert (1809-1879), was one of the early settlers of Altoona and a grandson of Benedict Calvert of Mt. Airy Plantation, Maryland. We were able to locate his grave stone in the Fairview Cemetery. Two neighbourhoods in the city were named for him: Calvert Hills and Calvertville. My father-in-law grew up in this vicinity and gave us a guided tour, complete with memories of friends and relations and the houses in which they had once lived. Somewhat later in our travels Nancy was able to locate the cemetery where her 3rd great-grandfather, William Calvert (1770-1847), was buried. This was at St. Peter's Lutheran Church, near Newville.

Altoona is a railfan's paradise. The Pennsylvania Railroad dominated the life of the city for generations, and a number of my in-laws worked for the company in its heyday. It was long a competitor with the New York Central for the Chicago to New York run until it merged with its rival in 1968 to form the ill-fated Penn Central. In 1976 the PC merged with a number of other eastern US lines to form Conrail, which became the equivalent of what Canadians would call a Crown corporation until it was privatized some years later. Altoona residents nurture the memory of the PRR in a number of ways. We ourselves visited two associated landmarks. The first was Horseshoe Curve, a remarkable engineering feat completed in 1854 which allowed trains to make it up a particularly difficult stretch of the Allegheny Mountains. It is styled the "eighth wonder of the modern world." Over the Independence Day weekend just past festivities were planned to mark the 150th anniversary of the Curve, and Vice President Dick Cheney was expected to be present.


Railroaders Heritage Corporation

Horseshoe Curve

The following day we visited the Railroaders Memorial Museum, right downtown adjacent the railroad tracks. In addition to indoor exhibits there are quite a few old Pennsy cars and locomotives outdoors, all lovingly maintained by those dedicated to the memory of the late great railroad which provided transportation for Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. There were apparently other rail-related sites in the area which we did not see.

From Altoona we drove southeast towards York, just north of the border with Maryland. Here we celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Here too there is an historic railroad, which we nevertheless did not ride. This was the first time in a number of years that our extended family was together. I most enjoyed the music that is a feature of our family gatherings. My sister's lovely and talented daughters harmonized especially well. Remarkably, although I have written of the dangers posed by popular music to genuine folk music, we found ourselves singing some of the jazz standards of the 1930s and '40s, that is, the popular music of the day. As my brother-in-law is an accomplished bluegrass banjo player, we were delighted to hear him perform as well.

While in that part of the state, we drove through nearby Lancaster County, known as Pennsylvania Dutch (i.e., Deutsch) country. It is particularly known for its Amish residents and culture, reflected in the presence of horses and buggies and of farms lacking electrical power.

It was a successful trip in every way, but we're glad to be home again.

Trip to the States

I have just returned from 9 days south of the border in Illinois and Michigan, along with my family. Our trip had two purposes. First, we were in the Chicago area for the baptism of my wife's infant niece a week ago sunday. Second, this past weekend we went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I attended the second annual Symposium on Religion and Politics, sponsored by The Henry Institute at Calvin College.

We stayed the first night in Battle Creek, Michigan, making our way to Elmhurst, Illinois, the second night, where we stayed with my sister-in-law and her family. The baptism was administered according to the Maronite rite in a largely Lebanese congregation. The liturgy has some similarities to both Roman and Byzantine rites, with generous use of Aramaic, the language of the very first Christians two millennia ago. The weather was delightful. It was the first time in years we had been back in "home" territory without it being oppressively hot. We were pleasantly surprised at the number of flowering trees in the central DuPage County region where I grew up. The topography is generally not very interesting, but spring is little short of spectacular this year, making it a wonderful time to be visiting. We found a number of things to do with the extended family, including visits to the DuPage County Historical Museum and the Cosley Zoo, both in Wheaton. The former boasts an elaborate model railway in the basement, showing the Chicago & North Western and Chicago Aurora & Elgin railroads as they once made their way through the middle of the county. Another highlight of our stay was a brief visit to First Presbyterian Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where Nancy and I were married and Theresa baptized. I suppose it could be considered our home church in a sense. They have just opened a new and impressive addition to the church building. This is obviously a thriving and growing congregation in an otherwise shrinking denomination.

After our stay in the Chicago area, we made the drive up to Grand Rapids, where I attended and presented a paper at the Henry Institute Symposium, which took place at the new Prince Conference Center at Calvin. The schedule offered a number of interesting papers and presenters. I was pleased that my own paper was scheduled for the very first session, when people are still fresh and enthusiastic and able to come up with good questions. The paper's title was "Redeeming Authority: towards a recovery and proper understanding of authority and its place in human society," which was a slight reworking of my inaugural address. The discussant was Stanley Carlson-Thies, who is with the Center for Public Justice and worked in the White House in 2001-2002.

Among the other sessions I attended was one devoted to Catholic political thought, a perennial interest of mine. Brian Peterson of the University of Dayton gave a paper on Fr. Richard John Neuhaus in which he argued that Neuhaus' embrace of Catholicism has everything to do with his perception of this historic faith's political utility in upholding the American democratic experiment. I think Peterson is right to a large extent, but I suppose I would wish to give Neuhaus more credit than that. Then Fr. Peter Bisson, SJ, delivered a paper describing the Jesuits' commitment to liberation theology since 1975. Although the paper was interesting and made some good points, one would hardly know from his account that liberation theology had long passed its sell-by date.

The most discouraging session was titled "Beyond Kuyperianism" and was chaired by my former colleague, John Bolt, now teaching at Calvin Seminary. David Van Drunen and Darryl Hart argued for the most dualistic and lutheranizing reading of Calvin imaginable. Those arguing for the cosmic scope of redemption in Christ, including my current colleague and great friend Al Wolters (who was mentioned by name), came in for a drubbing. It's almost as if someone were to defend, and even glory in, the residual platonic and manichaean elements in Augustine's thought at the expense of the obviously more biblical elements. Why on earth would anyone, particularly a Reformed Christian, do this? Why would one wish to affirm that Christ's redemptive grace touches only a part of our lives, leaving aside the full range of cultural activities for which we were created?

Two of the saturday sessions are worth mentioning as well. One was on religion and American foreign policy. Robert O. Smith of Baylor University discussed the phenomenon of christian zionism among American evangelicals. Joe Kickasola of Regent University discussed Bush's middle eastern policy, especially with respect to Iraq. In response to a question I posed to him, he professed to favour a redrawing of state boundaries along ethnic lines. He even said -- perhaps hyperbolically -- that he prays for the creation of an independent Kurdistan, of all things. A Wilsonian commitment to self-determination still lingers in some places, it seems. One can only hope it stays out of the corridors of decision-making power.

The second session was devoted to evangelicalism and political and social life. It featured one Debra Daniels, who gave an interesting paper titled, "Evangelical Egalitarianism and Mutual Submission," as well as Robin Weinstein, whose presentation dealt with welfare reform in the US, particularly under Bush. Weinstein is a recent graduate of Eastern University, where he took courses with Paul Brink, one of my own protégés who is now teaching there.

On friday evening we heard a keynote address delivered by Dr. Kwame Bediako, "A New Christian World: Reading the Signs of the Kingdom Amid Global Geopolitics," which he had earlier presented as the first of the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary some weeks earlier. Bediako sounded many of the same themes as Philip Jenkins in The Next Christendom, particularly with respect to the shifting of the global centre of Christianity towards the African continent.

In summary, the conference was worthwhile, and our travels a success. Now back to work.

Visit to the States

Nancy and Theresa and I just got back from our annual visit to family in Michigan and Illinois. We had a great time. I will not bore readers with every little thing we did. But there were a few highlights worth mentioning:

- A personal tour of my uncle's collection of antique tractors at his farm near Dundee, Michigan.

- A visit to the recently refurbished Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. My favourite exhibits here were the Great Train Story and the Pioneer Zephyr. (I am a railfan, after all.) Theresa liked Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle and the Idea Factory.

- A visit to the Fox River Trolley Museum, where they've extended their trackage south to the Blackhawk Forest Preserve. Afterwards we stopped for Tastee Freez ice cream, something I remember fondly from my childhood.

- A big fat Greek dinner at my aunt and uncle's house, including two kinds of souvlakia, string beans and kolokithia (zuchini), kidney bean salad, tsatsiki, and what is arguably the world's greatest beer, Pilsner Urquell, brewed in the Czech Republic. The highlight of the evening had us all dancing to nostalgic Greek songs I had last listened to some 30 or 35 years ago. (Theresa loved this part. "I'm having a wonderful time," she beamed to her great aunt in the middle of a two-step.)

- Several violent storms passing through the area, making for heavy downpours, high standing water, downed tree branches, but cooler than normal temperatures.

- Patio seating at a restaurant, which we enjoyed due to the mild temperature.

- Arriving back home again after ten days on the road.