DEW Consulting

This Day in History, 1974.

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American David Kunst completes the first round-the-world journey on foot, taking four years and 21 pairs of shoes to complete the 14,500-mile journey across the land masses of four continents. He left his hometown of Waseca, Minnesota, on June 20, 1970. Near the end of his journey in 1974 he explained the reasons for his epic trek: “I was tired of Waseca, tired of my job, tired of a lot of little people who don’t want to think, and tired of my wife.” During the long journey, he took on sponsors and helped raise money for UNICEF.

He was accompanied by his brother, John, but in 1972 John Kunst was shot to death by bandits in Afghanistan and David was wounded. After returning to Minnesota to recuperate, Kunsk traveled back to Afghanistan and continued his global journey with another brother, Peter. Peter had to drop out later for health reasons, and David Kunst completed his trek alone, returning to Waseca on October 5, 1974.

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Just one question:  If you’re tired of Waseca, wouldn’t it be easier to move to the Twin Cities?

😉

On This Day in History, October 3, 1226, St. Francis of Assisi died in Umbria (central Italy).  His feast day is observed on October 4. You can read an exhaustively complete account of his life here.  Or, read on for something shorter and more contemporary.

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One of my favorite places in the American Southwest is the Cathedral of St. Francis in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

St. Francis often is represented with animals. Indeed he is known as the patron saint of animals. He’s also known as the patron saint of birds (a subset of animals), and of ecology (a super-set of animals). Also he’s patron saint of merchants (?), and of lace and needle-workers (a curiously narrow subset of merchants).  Last but not least, he’s patron saint of both Denver, Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico.  One thing’s for sure about saints, they definitely know how to multi-task.

With his pet wolf standing outside the cathedral in Santa Fe.

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Although born rich, St. Francis voluntarily lived a life of poverty. The Franciscan Order which he founded early in the 13th century survives to this day.  I’m proud to say it includes my dear friend Br. Stephen Andrew, AKA Steve Starr.  A retrospective of Steve’s  Pulitzer Prize winning photographs can be seen here.

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Perhaps my favorite St. Francis story involves this guy below.

This statue of St. Francis stands outside Grace Episcopal church in Colorado Springs. It is surrounded by a fountain in a lovely garden that is home to a summer music series called Jazz in the Garden – but that’s another story for another day.  The statue is hollow, thus not as heavy as if it were made of solid bronze.  That fact allowed some enterprising thieves one night to put one end of a heavy chain around St. Francis’ neck, the other end around a pickup truck bumper, and pull him off his pedestal, spiriting him away to parts unknown. If he’d been made of solid bronze, a crane would have been necessary to lift him.

For the better part of two years St. Francis’ pedestal stood empty. Those who loved his gentle presence in the garden grieved.  The offer of a reward for his safe return produced no leads. Then one day a lady who lives a few miles north of the church called and said she saw St. Francis standing under a pine tree in the forest.  It was no ethereal vision, but the actual statue. He’d been stashed in an out-of-the-way corner by thieves who found out – much to their chagrin – that a hollow statue brought far less on the black market than a solid bronze one might have. Live and learn, I guess.

In any case, St. Francis returned to the garden. The lady who found him refused to accept any reward. She said she was just happy he was in his proper place. And this time, St. Francis was anchored by heavy steel rebar sunk deep into fresh concrete poured beneath a rebuilt fountain.

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As GWB once famously tried to say, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Or, as the old Arab adage goes, “Trust Allah…. but tie your camel.”

On This Day in History.

Click here for a brief account of the October 2nd, 2006 tragedy at West Nickel Mines Amish School.

According to MapQuest, it is only 10 miles as the crow flies from Nickel Mines to Kirkwood. That is where my brother-in-law Axel lives at Lindenhof Farm.  Lindenhof used to be home to award-winning Guernseys when Axel’s dad Dick Linde ran it as a milking operation.  Now, it’s home to happy chickens, cows, lambs, and hogs, who provide the meat for Axel’s thriving farmers’ market business. As a seasonal aside, Lindenhof is also home to many temporarily happy turkeys who likely will remain happy – right up until just before Thanksgiving, at which point…. well, you know. (Operators are standing by to take your order…)

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The most striking thing about the mass shooting at Nickel Mines School wasn’t the size of the slaughter:  5 dead, 5 wounded, and a perpetrator who committed suicide.  Sad to say, we’ve seen much higher kill counts and much bigger bloodbaths here in America, both before and since. Nor was the makeup of the shooter’s arsenal particularly exotic:  It included a 9mm handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun, and 30-06 hunting rifle, all of which are pretty much standard issue on farms in south central PA (and I should know because I grew up on one).  The relative innocence of the victims (ages 6-13, all female, all Amish) was perhaps noteworthy, though one has to admit, when are ANY victims of such acts deserving of their fate?  Also pretty much par for the course in incidents like this was a bizarre mental health twist on the part of the perpetrator, Charles Carl Roberts IV…

He was a father of three who worked as a milk truck driver.  In this picture he looks considerably younger than his stated age of 32.  In fact, he looks less like a psychopathic assassin and more like he could be your nephew or your cousin.  He was supposedly despondent over (take your pick) the death of an infant daughter nine years prior, and/or  a mysterious incident of supposed sexual abuse that he had allegedly committed decades before. The molestation involved two young female relatives, then ages 3 and 5.  But according to Wikipedia:

“The two relatives whom <Roberts> said he molested 20 years ago told police that no such abuse had ever happened, throwing a new layer of mystery over the gunman’s motive and mental state during the shooting.”

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No, the really remarkable thing that sets this one apart came in the aftermath, and it had to do with the response of the Amish community.  Their words and actions in the wake of the shootings at Nickel Mines School was – much like the Amish community itself – very conspicuously distinct from what passes for normal in America these days.  Again from Wikipedia, and this time quoting at length:

On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, “We must not think evil of this man.” Another Amish father noted, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he’s standing before a just God.” Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: “I don’t think there’s anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.”

A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts’ widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts’ sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. The Amish also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. About 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts’ funeral, and Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.

Marie Roberts wrote an open letter to her Amish neighbors thanking them for their forgiveness, grace, and mercy. She wrote, “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.” The Amish do not normally accept charity, but because of the extreme nature of the tragedy, donations were accepted. Richie Lauer, director of the Anabaptist Foundation, said the Amish community, whose religious beliefs prohibit them from having health insurance, will likely use the donations to help pay the medical costs of the hospitalized children.

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Some commentators criticized the quick and complete forgiveness with which the Amish responded, arguing that forgiveness is inappropriate when no remorse has been expressed, and that such an attitude runs the risk of denying the existence of evil.  Others were more supportive:  Donald Kraybill and two other scholars of Amish life noted that “letting go of grudges” is a deeply rooted value in Amish culture, which remembers forgiving martyrs including Dirk Willems and Jesus himself. They explained that the Amish willingness to forgo vengeance does not undo the tragedy or pardon the wrong, but rather constitutes a first step toward a future that is more hopeful.

I won’t dignify comments casting stones at the Amish for their forgiveness of the shooter with a response because – given the circumstances – such comments don’t even rise to the level of deserving a response. You don’t have to be a fan of the Amish way of strict withdrawal and separation from the trappings of American culture (I’m not) to recognize how truly remarkable “forgiveness, grace, and mercy” are when you see them acted out like this under the most harrowing of circumstances.  Or, when you experience them up close and personal, as Marie Roberts did.  Frankly, any “step toward a future that is more hopeful” is a step worth taking, and it’s one that I unreservedly applaud.

This Day in History, 1867 – Goodnight, Loving.  A cattle driver dies, but the dream of life in the American West lives on.

Today’s offering from This Day in History takes us back to 1780 and the American Revolution. But first, a more pleasant diversion to Gastro Obscura for an exhaustive examination of the the origins of the eponymous egg dish, along with some great Gilded Age photos of Delmonico’s in New York, including one of their menu:  “Beluga caviar, only $1.75” – wow!  You can read all about it here.

And for those whose appetite has now been whetted for finding out the fate of America’s foremost traitor, you can read it here.

   Benedict Arnold

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Last but not least, the following, from Wikipedia.

Historians have identified many possible factors contributing to Arnold’s treason, while some debate their relative importance. According to W. D. Wetherell, he was:

among the hardest human beings to understand in American history. Did he become a traitor because of all the injustice he suffered, real and imagined, at the hands of the Continental Congress and his jealous fellow generals? Because of the constant agony of two battlefield wounds in an already gout-ridden leg? From psychological wounds received in his Connecticut childhood when his alcoholic father squandered the family’s fortunes? Or was it a kind of extreme midlife crisis, swerving from radical political beliefs to reactionary ones, a change accelerated by his (second) marriage to the very young, very pretty, very Tory Peggy Shippen?

Wetherell says that the shortest explanation for his treason is that he “married the wrong person.”

   Peggy Shippen

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Or, as the FBI agent who interviewed me for my security clearance before I started working for the U.S. Department of Interior told me: “This process will take about half a day – unless of course you’ve got big debts or a second marriage. In those cases, the background check will take considerably longer.”