Remembering the Other American Astronomical Society

Posted on March 29, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Charles R. Parsons' perspective map (not drawn to scale), 'The city of Brooklyn' (1879) print by Currier and Ives, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
“The City of Brooklyn”. (1979) Currier & Ives
Inset: Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory is in the center of the lower right quadrant. (It’s a real word!)

I’m a huge fan of science, but by training I’m an historian. Or a historian.

Either way, as it turned out, the closest I came to being a professional historian was working as a researcher/reporter for a regional historical society in the 1970s. For a few months. And that’s another topic.

My background and interests help me appreciate the excitement experienced by a grad student who was focusing on the history of science.

A Scrapbook and the First American Astronomical Society

Postcard 12855: 'Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, N.Y.' Copr. Geo. P. Hall and son, Detroit Publishing Company (1908-1909) The New York Public Library Digital Collections, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.
Postcard: The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. (1908-1909) © Geo. P. Hall and son.

She’d been (metaphorically) digging through the old Hayden Planetarium library when she found a thick scrapbook: that hadn’t been catalogued.

That is why I prefer having physical access to archives.

Catalogs are handy, and I’m grateful that today’s information tech gives me limited access to a fair number of catalogs. But there’s no substitute for getting into the back stacks and going through everything: including what dropped through the cracks.

Anyway, this scrapbook “was stuffed with newspaper clippings, typed meeting transcripts, draft manuscripts of talks, and letters dated from 1883 to 1890….” (Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025))

Giuseppe Arcimboldo's 'Porträtt, karikatyr:' portrait of Wolfgang Lazius. (1562) Photo by Samuel Uhrdin, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.To historians, a find like this is GOLD.

Trudy E. Bell1 found that scrapbook in 1976.

She figured the odds were good that it wasn’t the only scrapbook documenting the 1883 American Astronomical Society, since “the first volume seemed to end simply because it ran out of pages.” (Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025)

Fast-forward to early 1979. Paul W. Luther, an astronomy antiquarian bookseller, called Bell. He said he might have the second scrapbook.

This one showed up in an estate sale. It covered the Brooklyn Institute Astronomical Department’s first six decades: from June 1888 through 1948. That overlaps two years of the first scrapbook. Again: GOLD.

Archives and Attitudes

Jack Boucher's photo, 'General View of book room, looking east. Library Company of Philadelphia, Ridgway Branch, 900 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA.' (1962) posted in 'American Libraries: New Book', Kristi Finefield, Library of Congress Blogs (October 25, 2017)Finding a record of what someone said someone else said is good.

Finding the record of what someone else said, made by that particular someone else: that’s really good.

I’ve noticed that what ‘some guy said he heard’ doesn’t always line up with ‘what I said’: and both may be at odds with what the ‘what I said’ person wrote down before and after.

Those discrepancies — often, I hope, honest misapprehensions or the same idea approached from a different direction — are one reason I dig into what I can find while writing my more research-intensive posts.

Another reason I do the digging I do — besides my incurable curiosity about pretty much everything — is that articles and summaries leave out details that didn’t matter in that article or summary.

Which is what I’m doing this week — leaving out many details — since this isn’t a particularly research-heavy post. And besides, I’m focusing on something other than the first American Astronomical Society.

“Grandiose” Amateurs With “Considerable Pretensions”?

Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier's 'Reading of Voltaire's L'Orphelin de la Chine' (a tragedy about Ghengis Khan and his sons, published in 1755), in the salon of Madame Geoffrin (Malmaison, 1812).
Enlightenment-era folks reading Voltaire in Madame Geoffrin’s salon, as imagined by Lemonnier. (1812))

This isn’t the America, or the world, I grew up in.

BBC Future: 'What the ‘future histories’ of the 1920s can teach us about hope', 'Looking to a brighter future?' (published January 12, 2024) image from Getty Images/BBC Future, used w/o permissionI’m not happy about everything that’s changed. But in some ways — many ways — I like living in ‘the future’.

For one thing, science and scientists have become a great deal less stuffy.

Take how serious scientists and historians saw the first American Astronomical Society, for example:

“…Its apparently short-lived existence was known to 20th-century historians but largely dismissed. Richard Berendzen wrote in Physics Today (December 1974), ‘Almost predictably, the effort failed, undoubtedly in large part because it was not led by the only persons who could make it succeed, the professionals…’ In Social Studies of Science (1981), Marc Rothenberg added, ‘The grandiose name obscured the reality that this was simple a local amateur’s [sic] organization with considerable pretensions.’
(“The First ‘American Astronomical Society'”, Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025))

Well, some serious scientists and historians have loosened their collars, at any rate.

That said, I can, in a way, see their point.

Resources, Research, and Citizen Scientists

ESO illustration: Extremely Large Telescope, E-ELT; what's under the dome.Someone who’s paid to use state-of-the-art equipment that costs more than most folks will see in their lifetime can observe, record, and organize a great deal of data: and make significant contributions to humanity’s knowledge and understanding.

A professional scientist like that will out-perform someone putting in a few hours each weekend with equipment that’s paid for by a household’s left-over cash. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for folks who’ll be curious: even when nobody’s paying them to use their brains.

A flip side to the professional/amateur comparison is that there are many more curious amateurs than more-or-less-well-paid experts.

And many of those amateurs will, arguably, know a great deal more about what’s going on in related fields than the highly-focused professional.

Researching the demographics and history of “citizen science” is more than I’ll try this week: or maybe ever.

I didn’t run into the “citizen science” phrase until a decade or so back, and don’t know how much it’s been studied as a part of humanity’s efforts to figure out how stuff works.

Maybe someone’s dug through paperwork that’s accumulated in archives, found enough scrapbooks, traced citations in the back of science journals — and written a comprehensive history of citizen science.

Some ‘citizen scientists’ are professional scientists who retired and finally have time to do their own research. Others are folks who enjoy paying attention, thinking about what they’ve noticed, and telling others what they’ve seen and what they think about it.

The good news is that today’s tech lets them get in touch with each other more easily. Even better, professional scientists — astronomers, at any rate — are now taking them seriously, and collaborating with them. Openly.

This is not the world I grew up in.

The First American Astronomical Society

Charles R. Parsons' perspective map (not drawn to scale), 'The city of Brooklyn' (1879) print by Currier and Ives, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
“The City of Brooklyn”. (1979) Currier & Ives panoramic map.
Detail, Charles R. Parsons' perspective map (not drawn to scale), 'The city of Brooklyn' (1879) print by Currier and Ives, via Library of Congress, used w/o permission. And see https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/416824 'City of New York: Charles Richard Parsons ..., Lyman Wetmore Atwater ..., Publisher Currier & Ives ... 1876', The Met / Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Detail, “The City of Brooklyn” (1879): Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory, right of center.

I did a little checking: today’s American Astronomical Society (AAS) operates out of Washington DC. It’s been in operation since 1899 — and gets treated as the one and only ‘real’ AAS.

There’s no mention of another AAS. Not, at any rate, in resources I found after an exhaustive Google check: that lasted all of maybe two minutes 😉 — I did, however, find a bit about Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory.

“…Its original owner was Jacob Campbell, a banker living in Brooklyn Heights, New York, and it was one of the largest privately-owned telescopes in the world. Mr. Campbell built a garden observatory in 1854, where he used the telescope until his death in 1864. The house, observatory and telescope were purchased the next year by Stephen Van Cullen-White, a lawyer. Disappointed with the views produced by the telescope, in 1867 he contracted Alvan Clark & Sons, the premier American telescope makers of the later nineteenth century, to refigure the objective lens. Mr. White became a very successful broker, banker, and U.S. representative, and he made the telescope available to local amateur astronomers and school classes. One teacher taking advantage of Mr. White’s generosity was Miss Sarah Whiting of the Brooklyn Heights Seminary who, in 1879, would come to Wellesley College as a physics professor….”
(“Fitz/Clark 12-in Refractor” , Whitin Observatory, Wellesley College. Wellesley, Massachusetts) [emphasis mine]

I’m mentioning Cullen White’s observatory because he’s one of the thirteen not-real-astronomers who started the American Astronomical Society — the one “with considerable pretensions” — in 1883, 16 years before the other one.

“On Monday evening, January 22, 1833, thirteen men gathered in the Brooklyn Heights mansion of Wall Street stockbroker Stephan Van Cullen White and formed what they called the American Astronomical Society. The Brooklyn group was the first astronomical body in the nation created purely to share knowledge rather than to establish an observatory….”
(“The First ‘American Astronomical Society'”, Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025))

According to her, the only known image of Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory is in that 1879 Currier & Ives panoramic map.

She also said that the American Astronomical Society, the one founded in 1883, kept the name for about five years. Then, in 1888, it became the Astronomical Department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Time passed, and now it’s the Brooklyn Museum.

When the ‘pretentious’ AAS became the presumably-respectable Astronomical Department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, its organization didn’t change.

The same not-real-astronomers were running it.

But a whole lot more folks got involved.

Respectability does have advantages, and that’s yet another topic.

Participation and Pigeonholes

Photo: Brian H. Gill, at his desk. (March 2021)I’d been planning on writing about something else this week. Instead, I’ve been participating in a family activity: being slightly sick.

Nobody’s got a high fever, which suits us just fine. I don’t even have that: my temp has been a trifle below normal. I never did do ‘conformity’ particularly well.

And that’s yet again another topic.

The point of this week’s post, if it has one, is that I don’t see folks in any of my culture’s pigeonholes as having a monopoly on brains and curiosity.

And I’ve been glad to see so many folks who did manage to make a career out of being curious loosen up a bit about others who use their brains just for the fun of it.

Which isn’t to say that we’re now living in a perfect world.

I’ve talked about that before, sort of:

1 Someone who’s sharing developments in our knowledge of this universe and humanity’s long story:

Posted in Discursive Detours, Journal, Science News | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and the Big Picture

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Erin Whittaker, U.S. National Park Service's photo of the Grand Canyon in fog. (November 29, 2013) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Erin Whittaker/U.S. National Park Service’s photo of the Grand Canyon in fog. (November 29, 2013)

The Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Meteor Crater aren’t on the obvious and shortest route from San Francisco to the Upper Midwest.

But in 1979, with no reason for staying in San Francisco — that’s another topic, for another time — and good reasons for returning to Minnesota, going out of my way to see them seemed like a good idea.

On the South Rim: a Beard, a Cap and an Unresolved Puzzle

Pescaiolo's photo of the Grand Canyon in winter. (February 23, 2008) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Pescaiolo’s photo of the Grand Canyon in winter. (February 23, 2008)

It’s been nearly 46 years since I was at the Grand Canyon. It hasn’t changed much.

On a geologic timescale, 46 years is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ interval. The South Rim Visitor Center is another matter. I can’t even be sure it’s at the same location now.1

At any rate, I’d been thoroughly enjoying myself on the south rim. While living in San Francisco, I bought a topographic map of the Grand Canyon. It wasn’t big as a tablecloth, and that’s yet another topic.

I’d spread out the map at intervals, seeing what I was looking at, and take photos.

I was flattered, and surprised, when two tourists from Thailand asked me if I was Jewish. I explained that I’m a gentile — I don’t remember my exact words.

We chatted a bit, which is how I learned they were from Thailand. Then I went back to enjoying the magnificent views.

I hadn’t asked them what suggested that I was a Jew. That remained and remains a puzzle. A minor one, but a puzzle nonetheless.

After mulling it over, I strongly suspect they’d noticed that I had a full beard and never took my cap off.

Quite a few gentiles in America wore caps indoors and out at the time, and still do: but not many American men have a ‘haven’t shaved in years’ beard. The plain black jacket I wore probably helped, too.

I enjoyed being mistaken for one of my Lord’s closer relatives. But my ancestors are about as gentile as it gets, west of the Urals. They probably hadn’t even heard of Abraham or Isaac until missionaries arrived, and that’s yet again another topic.

Norwegian, But Not Nordic: a Digression

Elmer Boyd Smith's 'The third gift — an enormous hammer'. 'The dwarven sons of Sons of Ivaldi forge the hammer Mjolnir for the god Thor while Loki watches on. On the table before them sits their other creations: the multiplying ring Draupnir, the boar Gullinbursti, the ship Skíðblaðnir, the spear Gungnir, and golden hair for the goddess Sif.' From 'In the Days of Giants: A Book of Norse Tales', page 88, Abbie Farwell Brown, illustrations by Elmer Boyd Smith (1902) via Wikipedia
Elmer Boyd Smith’s “The dwarven sons of Sons of Ivaldi forge the hammer Mjolnir for Thor…”.(1902)

A fair number of forms I’ve filled out over the years have asked, in general terms, who my ancestors were.

I’m a Euro-American with roots in southern Norway and the northern British Isles, so I generally check off whatever the current euphemism for “white” is.

Getting more specific than that might be tricky, particularly if I needed to be both precise and accurate.

Family records don’t say, but my Norwegian ancestors almost certainly lived near “Nordic” folks: those tall, pale, blond Europeans who fit my culture’s “Norwegian” pigeonhole.

Now, I’ve got blue eyes, and the congenital melanin deficiency common to northwestern Europeans.

But I’m like many of my Scandinavian kin: short, with black hair. We’re not, as far as I can tell, Sámi. I’ve no idea “who” we are, or if anyone’s gotten around to cataloging our particular stock. On the other hand, maybe we have been cataloged: as folklore.

Flyby at the Petrified Forest

Paul P's photo/image: looking east, from a 360 view taken in Petrified Forest National Park. (September 2017) Paul P, via Google Street View, used w/o permission.
Petrified Forest National Park, near Blue Mesa Scenic Road. (Paul P/Google Street View)

I got a quick look at cinder cones in the Painted Dessert while I was at the Grand Canyon’s south rim. Exactly where that was, I don’t know.

Nothing at the Visitor Center looked familiar when I virtually visited the place this week, using Google Street View. Hardly surprising, since I was only there once, in 1979.

The same goes for Petrified Forest National Park. I’m guessing that they’ve re-engineered the park entrance. And relocated it, too.2

When I was there, the entrance — the one I used — was on what may have been a dry river bottom, with low buttes on either side. Or maybe they’re called mesas.

Either way, I’d stopped and was going through a ‘getting into the national park’ process which involved having my car’s window rolled down and talking with someone at the checkpoint.

We were interrupted by a loud roar, and a very brief glimpse of a military jet flashing across a gap in the buttes ahead. It must have been turning, since the pilot had its wings almost at right angles to the ground.

I said ‘looks like one of ours’, or something of the sort. I know; but I’m a guy, and was in my 20s.

The park ranger was still holding the binoculars he’d grabbed, and sounded irritated.

A short but informative conversation followed. Seems that Petrified Forest National Park is between two air bases, and that pilots would try flying between them without being identified. That’s how I remember it. Again, it’s been almost 46 years.

Joyriding? More Likely: Training

National Park Service photo: 'Jasper Forest follows an old roadbed into a wonderland of geology and petrified wood.' (2019)
“Jasper Forest follows an old roadbed into a wonderland of geology and petrified wood.” (NPS)

What I’m certain of is that I saw and heard that jet, and that it must have been flying as low as the top of that badlands’ high ground. My guess is that whatever was going on, it wasn’t simply joyriding.

How official those ‘try and spot me’ flights were, I don’t know. But it does strike me as the sort of exercise that would be very good practice for pilots whose job might include staying off the radar.

I’ve tried piecing together what sort of jet it was, and which two air bases were involved. Given time, maybe I could narrow it down to a few strong possibilities. Maybe.3

Then again, maybe not. It’s been a long time. I only got a quick look at the wings: and, although I’m curious, I’m not that curious.

The Big Picture

NASA astronaut photograph ISS039-E-5258, Expedition 39 crew (March 25, 2014) 'The Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is a favorite for astronauts shooting photos from the International Space Station, as well as one of the best-known tourist attractions in the world.'
The Grand Canyon, seen from International Space Station. (March 25, 2014)

Recapping, I met tourists from Thailand at the Grand Canyon, and saw a low-flying military jet in the Petrified Forest.

The contrast reminded me of — well, quite a lot, actually. But I’ll wrap things up this week with points that I’ve talked about often: but not recently.

I’ll start with the obvious. We don’t live in an ideal world, and we’re not perfect people.

But God doesn’t make junk, and we’re not the Almighty’s big mistake. That should, arguably, be obvious: but I’ve run into folks with — interesting — ideas.

So here’s a quick look at how I see life, the universe, and everything:

This universe was, and is, basically good. We were basically good. We still are: we were, and are, made “in the divine image”. (Genesis 1:27, 31; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 31, 299, 337-344, 355-379)

Something, obviously, went wrong with us. But God did not hit us with a ‘bad-stick’ and change what we basically are.

Our nature has not changed. We were and remain wounded: but we are not corrupted. (Genesis 1:27, 31, 3:1–19; Catechism, 31, 299, 355-361, 374-379, 398, 400-406, 405, 1701-1707, 1949)

Free Will, Living With Consequences, a Good Idea, and Very Good News

Detail of boy using printer's tools, Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
Currier and Ives: “The progress of the century – the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat”, detail. (ca. 1876)

The account of what happened, in Genesis 3, is figurative, “…but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man….” (Catechism 390)

The first of us decided that ‘I want’ mattered more than God’s ‘you should’. (Catechism, 398)

I’m not personally responsible for that bad decision, and human nature did not become all bad. But, like everyone else, I’m living with consequences of humanity’s bad start. (Catechism, 390, 396-406)

That’s the bad news. The good news is that hope is an option.

We “…all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ….” (Catechism, 389, 405, 407-412, 1701-1707, 1811, 1949)

Putting it another way — God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (Matthew 5:44–5; John 1:12–14, 3:17; Romans 8:14–17; ; Ephesians 1:3–5; Peter 2:3–4; Catechism, 1-3, 27-30, 52, 1825, 1996)

So: how come God didn’t swoop in after the first of us made that profoundly ill-considered decision, and make everything better?

It boils down to free will. Each of us decides to act, or not act. Each of us lives with the consequences of our decisions, and the consequences of decisions made before we came along. (Catechism, 344-404, 1730, 1951)

Making good decisions matters, a lot. Happily, we’ve got rules: and they’re quite simple.

I should love God, love my neighbor, and see everyone as my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31, 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789, 2196)

I said the rules are simple: not easy.

But loving God and neighbors, and seeing everyone as a neighbor? It’s still a good idea.

The Danger of War, the Civilization of Love

Inlakechh/Marco Bauriedel's 'Cityscape'. (ca. 2016) used w/o permission.
Marco Bauriedel’s “Cityscape”. (ca. 2016) used w/o permission.

Ideally, visiting the Grand Canyon from anywhere in the world would be simple: apart, maybe, from the economic angle.

International borders would be open, with checks on who’s going where limited to the equivalent of mail forwarding.

The analog of today’s armed forces would be more like our fire and rescue departments.

That’s not, putting it mildly, the world we live in.

Something I like about being Catholic is that the Church shows anyone who’s interested how we could and should act. And tells us that we should use our brains. It’s like Pope St. Paul VI said:

“…As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted….”
(“Gaudium et Spes” , Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965)) [emphasis mine]

Deciding where and when peaceful settlement stops being a reasonable option — that’s among the reasons I don’t yearn for high office.

So much for the world we live in today.

I’ll wrap this up with a something another pope said, a bit of poetry, and how I see a very long-term goal.4

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization” , Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

Looking Forward

Nighttime photo of the 1939 World's Fair, New York City. (September 15, 1939.)
Nighttime photo of the 1939 World’s Fair, New York City. (September 15, 1939)

Building a civilization of love will take time and effort on an epic scale. Even so, I think it’s a good idea.

I also think we’re closer to that goal than we were when Tennyson wrote “Locksley Hall” and “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After”.

Not much, mind you: but turning good ideas into practical realities takes time.

“…For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;…
“…Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.…”
(“Locksley Hall” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835)) [emphasis mine]

“…Gone the cry of ‘Forward, Forward,’ lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.
“Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
“‘Forward’ rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone.…”
(“Locksley Hall – Sixty Years After” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1886)) [emphasis mine]

Tennyson was born in 1809, which would make him about 77 when he wrote “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After”. I’m 73: not all that much younger.

So how come I don’t endorse his view that we should put our cries of “Forward” on hold for ten millennia?

Tennyson was a poet, an Englishman, and lived during the 19th century.

I’ve written the occasional poem. But I’m a writer, an historian, an American, and was born in the mid-20th century. I’ve also had a rather more — miscellaneous — life than England’s Poet Laureate.

Waiting Ten Thousand Years: Not an Option

Waldemar Kaempffert's 'Miracles You'll See in the Next Fifty Years', Popular Mechanics (February 1950) via David S. Zondy's Tales of Future Past https://davidszondy.com/futurepast/life-in-2000-ad.html
Waldemar Kaempffert’s “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years”, Popular Mechanics (February 1950)

I was a teen in the Sixties, and remember the unreasonably optimistic expectations many of my elders had for ‘The Future’.

Then, when electric can openers and color television failed to end poverty, abolish ignorance, and carry us into a shining utopia — equally-unreasonably pessimism came into fashion.

I never quite lost the idea that new technology gives us new opportunities.

How we use those opportunities is up to us. We’ll be centuries, cleaning up the mess made by bungled opportunities made in Tennyson’s day.

“…Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales…
“…Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range;
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change….”
(“Locksley Hall” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835))

Albrecht Dürer's 'Melancholia I,.' (1514) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Albrecht Dürer’s “Melancholia I”. (1514)

Again: how come I’m not sitting here in central Minnesota, wringing my hands, bemoaning the futility of it all, and saying that Tennyson was right — that we should stop “the cry of Forward! Forward!” for at least ten millennia?

Basically, it’s because I’m a Catholic: accepting the status quo is not an option. Neither is giving up because we’ve made mistakes.

Like it or not, we have “dominion” over this world. We’re stewards, or maybe ‘foremen’ is a better word: tasked with making reasoned use of this world’s resources for ourselves and for future generations. We have the authority to do what we see fit: and the responsibilities that go with that authority. (Catechism, 16, 339, 356-358, 2402, 2415-2418, 2456)

Cleaning up the mess left by earlier generations, and not repeating their mistakes? It’s part of our job.

The same principle applies to how we treat each other. It’s putting that ‘love God and neighbor, and everybody’s our neighbor’ thing into practice. Social justice, the kind that makes sense, is a good idea: and part of being a Catholic (Catechism, 1928-1942, for starters)

If we lived in perfect societies — we don’t, so another part of being a Catholic means at least suggesting that moving forward makes sense.

Long-Haul Projects

Zellim's 'Celistic Concept Art', detail. (2013) used w/o permission
Zellim’s “Celistic Concept Art”, detail. (2013)

I very strongly suspect we’ll have the mess left by Industrial Age blunders cleaned up in the next several centuries. Maybe sooner. It’s a fairly straightforward physical problem, and we’ve been learning a great deal about how Earth’s systems work.

Cobbling together a reasonable facsimile of St. John Paul II’s civilization of love: I’d like to think we could get something in working order in the next few centuries.

But I very strongly suspect that’s a seriously long-haul project. Humanity has a massive backlog of unresolved issues. It may take more than ten millennia.

But building a civilization of love is something we can work on now. And something we must work on, if generations who won’t be born until today’s problems and Sargon’s inventory reports seem roughly contemporary, will live in a better world.5

That’s why I keep suggesting that justice, and acts of charity — along with respecting humanity’s “transcendent dignity” — make sense. So does working toward a society where justice, charity and respect are the norm. All this starts in me, with an ongoing “inner conversion”. (Catechism, 1886-1889, 1928-1942, 2419-2442)

Finally: doing what I can do, with what I’ve got, makes sense. It’s worth thinking about.

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve read these:

1 Just a few links:

2 A few more links:

3 If I had to guess, the two bases would be Luke, Gila Bend, or Davis-Monthan in Arizona, and maybe Hill in Utah:

4 The idea, and phrase, has been around for a while — Pope St. Paul VI mentioned “the civilization of love and of peace” in 1970:

5 Keeping records matters (so does putting things in perspective):

Posted in Being Catholic, Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Odors, Experiences, and a Life Without Scent

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Brian H. Gill

Brian H. Gill's photo: lilac blossoms. (May 2021)How things smell matters.

“‘…What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;…'”
(Juliet, “Romeo and Juliet” , Shakespeare (ca. 1597))

“‘Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!'”
(Lady Macbeth, “Macbeth” , Shakespeare (ca. 1606))

“…Great masses of pale white clematis hang in sheets from the trees, cactus and aloe run riot among the glens, sweet scents of oleander float around the deep ravines, delicious perfumes of violets are wafted on every breeze from unseen and unsuspected gardens….”
(“The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins” , T. G. Bonney, E. A. R. Ball, H. D. Traill, Grant Allen, Arthur Griffiths, Robert Brown (1862))

I know that. I’ve done a fair amount of reading in my day, so I know quite a bit about odor. I gather that roses and other flowers smell sweet, and that blood has a distinctive odor.

But I don’t know it the way I know that a cloudless sky is blue. If my sight was as good as my sense of smell, I’d be legally blind.

There wasn’t one dramatic ‘aha’ moment when I realized that most folks have a whole world of perceptions that I don’t.

But a couple experiences do stand out.

A Brief Experience With Burning Sulfur

My folks got me a chemistry set in my preteens. It may or may not have included a sample of sulfur, and definitely did included a small alcohol burner.

This was back when manufacturers and retailers apparently assumed that parents had an ounce or two of sense, legislators weren’t trying to protect us from everything, and that’s another topic.

I’m not sure who got the idea. My guess is that my folks suggested it, since they seemed quite interested in seeing whether I could smell burning sulfur.

At any rate, we were in the kitchen of 818: a room in the northeast corner that was only as large as it needed to be. I’d lit the alcohol burner and set a small bit of sulfur over it. At least, that’s how I remember it.

Again, the room wasn’t large. My folks had, prudently, seen to it that windows were open. When the sulfur started burning, I saw the blue flame just fine. Odd: I don’t remember what the sulfur was in. Never mind.

Anyway, I should have detected the burning sulfur’s odor immediately. My folks definitely did, and assured me that I should.

I didn’t. I got a little closer, and still detected nothing. Other than what I could see, of course, and a little heat coming from the alcohol burner and sulfur.

Okay, maybe I needed to get closer. Finally, with my nose directly over the blue flame, I detected something: a sharp, unpleasant sensation in my nose and around my eyes.

We extinguished the flames, and that was the end of that experiment.

My folks and I talked about the situation, and decided that I really didn’t have much of a sense of smell.

A Day on a Lake

My folks spent a week at one of the lake resorts north of Park Rapids, Minnesota, each summer while I was growing up. That’s an annual routine I thoroughly enjoyed, and wasn’t able to replicate when my wife and I were raising our kids.

On one of these vacations, the three of us — me, Mom, and Dad — took a leisurely look around the lake in the sixteen footer that came with our cabin.

I don’t remember which year, what lake, or exactly how long the boat was. “Sixteen foot” is how Dad described it. The boat itself was wood, with an outboard motor at the back and two oars halfway along its length.

Where Every Prospect Pleases

We’d been noodling around for a while when Dad guided the boat in to a shallow bay. Shallow both in terms of how far back the bay went from the lake’s average shore, and in terms of depth. A great many reeds grew in the bay.

Dad had me at the front of the boat. Or I’d chosen that spot, I don’t remember which.

We were going slowly, not more than what would be comfortable walking speed on land. My folks mentioned that there was a distinct smell in the air. Well, of course. Where else would a smell be.

The point is that they asked me if I noticed it.

I didn’t.

I’d noticed the blue sky, the white clouds, the sunshine glinting on water, the reeds, the trees lining the bay.

I heard the boat’s motor — I’ve seen the sound outboard motors make described as a hum, roar, or whine. Understandable: but to me their sound is more like a buzz. Or maybe a Bronx cheer or raspberry.

I felt the boat’s gentle rocking, and the sun’s warmth.

In short, I’d noticed all the details of a beautiful summer day on a Minnesota lake.

Nearly all, that is. I’d been taking in the sights, sounds, and sensations — I’ve noticed, by the way, that poets often focus on sights and sounds:

“…The small birds twitter
The lake doth glitter….”
(“The Cock is crowing” , William Wordsworth (1815))

Make that 19th century poets I’ve run across. I get the impression that more up-to-date poets would focus on what my parents smelled — and I didn’t.

And Only Fish are Stinky

My parents insisted that I should be smelling something, so I paid careful attention to the air, breathing in deeply.

Sure enough, there was something distinctive about the olfactory ambience. Something not pleasant.

Right around that time, I looked down at the reed-filled water.

There was a dead fish floating right off the boat’s bow. And another next to it, with more filling in most of the blank spots between reeds.

I mentioned this to my parents.

Dad turned the boat around and we left that little bay.

Living in a Mostly-Scentless World

One of the perks that come with writing these ‘family stories’ is a reason for rummaging around in my mind’s archives.

Not only do I enjoy rummaging through archives, inner and otherwise, occasionally I’ll run across something that corrects a perception I thought was accurate; but isn’t.

Like me having no sense of smell. Maybe.

Getting Technical

Anosmia, ‘smell blindness’, being unable to detect smells, comes in a few flavors.

There’s just plain anosmia, being unable to detect one or more smells.

Then there’s hyposmia, which is the same thing except that the odors get detected: just not very well.

Anosmia can be acquired or congenital.

There’s a fair number of ways someone can lose their sense of smell. Like having COVID-19, for example. I’ve put a few links in a footnote.1 If you want me to talk about this at some point, let me know in a comment.

‘Smell blindness’ comes with downsides.

For example, my wife had me promise that I’d have the gas feed to our house shut off if she dies before I do. That’s not a downside, but not being able to smell the stink that’s put in commercial gas is.

Some folks have been looking at the social angle of lacking a sense of smell. Makes sense. But for someone like me, it’s just one more item I deal with when interacting with folks: and not even close to the top of the list.2

Leaves, Genes, and Anesthetic

Back in December I said that “I have no sense of smell”. That may not be accurate, although at that moment it seemed so. Lying isn’t the same as unintentionally making an inaccurate statement, although the result’s the same. And that’s yet another topic. Several.

I love the Christmas season. It’s also the time of year when, as my wife put it, I ‘get weird’. That’s something I’ll be talking about when I’m feeling a lot less, well, weird. Good grief, I’ve wandered off-topic again.

I may not be quite anosmic.

Like I said earlier, I could tell there was something off about the air above those dead fish.

Decades later, as an adult, I was visiting Dad on the homestead. Our conversation turned to the sense of smell. His wasn’t any too keen, either, so maybe it’s in our genes.

We were outside. Dad leaned over, picked a handful of some plant’s leaves and blossoms: or maybe they’d gone to seed by then. Rubbing what he’d picked between his palms, he cupped his hands and had me take a sniff.

I could tell that the air between his cupped hands was a trifle warm, but that was about it. After a few more tries, I thought maybe I could detect something: and told Dad.

That, and the burning sulfur, is as close as I’ve come to having a formal diagnosis of my sense of smell.

Another ‘I smell something’ experience happened just before one of those operations I had as a child.

Anesthesia masks were opaque in those days. This one looked really big as a medico put it over my face. Right before the lights, subjectively, went out, I smelled something very minty: like the light green mint candy at some wedding reception I’d been at as a child.

My oldest daughter wondered if the anesthetic might have contained menthol. I said maybe the minty smell happened when my brain, while going into sleep mode, grabbed the first label at hand and slapped it on the incoming olfactory data.

I figure that the minty maybe-odor will remain a mystery.

Now, finally, the usual more-or-less-related family stories:

1 What we’re learning about how we smell:

2 Living with a blind nose:

Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , | 3 Comments

The Eagle, My Father, and the Warehouse

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
NDSU's Fargo history collection photo: 'Case Threshing Machine Company building in background during an F.O.E. parade on N.P. Avenue, July 1, 1910'.
Parade on NP Avenue, Fargo, North Dakota. Inset: Case Threshing Machine Co. eagle and globe. (1910)

I remember when the Case building on NP (Northern Pacific) Avenue in Fargo looked the way it did in that photo.

I’d better explain.

I’m old, but I’m not that old. The F. O. E. (Fraternal Order of Eagles) parade on NP Avenue was in the summer of 1910. I wasn’t born until the fall of 1951.

Besides, the building I remember didn’t look exactly like the one in the photo.

I don’t remember either the water tower or the “J. I. CASE THRESHING MACHINE CO.” signage. Someone probably took the lettering down in 1928, 0r a little after, when “J. I. Case Company” became the outfit’s moniker.1

But otherwise, the Case company’s Fargo warehouse hadn’t changed much in the half-century between that 1910 parade and the time my father took me for a ride on the building’s freight elevator. Not on the outside, anyway.

A Dad Moment: Riding a Freight Elevator

CommercialCafe's photo: interior of Case building in Fargo during renovation. (August 4, 2021)
Case building interior, 2021. It didn’t look nearly this bright and tidy when my Dad and I were there.

I’m not sure how — or when, for that matter — my father arranged for us to get into the Case warehouse.

Whenever it was, the building was mostly empty: no people, a lot of open space lit by sunlight coming in through the windows.

There wasn’t much to see apart from columns and the beams and joists overhead.

We went in through the south door. I’m pretty sure about this, although it’s been a long time and I was young. We walked the building’s length to the freight elevator at the back.

Then we rode the open timber platform up to the top floor, looked around, and took the elevator back down.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like much. Not compared to, say, a trip to Disneyland.

But seeing the inside of a warehouse and riding a freight elevator was fun. And, at least as important, it was something my father and I did together.

The Curious Case of the Vanishing Eagle

Bonanzaville's photo: Case Eagle and Globe, from the Case building in Fargo, North Dakota. Displayed in the Pioneer Village, Bonanzaville USA, West Fargo, North Dakota. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanzaville,_USAThe Case building I remember was topped by a globe set on a small platform.

An eagle perched on the globe, gazing down NP Avenue.

At some point, both disappeared. I don’t remember exactly when.

The Case eagle logo dates back to 1865. I don’t know if the globe was part of the logo then. J. I. Case probably got the idea of using an eagle in his company’s logo from the 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment’s mascot, Old Abe; but I haven’t confirmed that.

At any rate, the Case globe and eagle perched atop of the Case building are part of my memories of Fargo’s NP Avenue.

And then they were gone.

Maybe the eagle and globe got taken down as part of the corporate shuffle that started in 1967 and went into overdrive in the 1980s. Or maybe someone got the notion that the logo was imperialistic and had to go. That was an interesting period.

Without them, the Case warehouse was just another building on NP Avenue.

I thought the Case building’s logo was gone for good. But it looks like someone donated it to an open-air museum in West Fargo. Or maybe the museum had it all along. Either way, the sculpture was on display in Bonanzaville by February of 2018.2

The Old Case Building and Downtown Fargo: Catching Up

Commercial Cafe's photo: Case Plaza, seen from the southeast, in Fargo, ND.
The Case building, remodeled as office space. (ca. 2020)

Someone converted the Case building to office space in the late 1980s to 1990s.

About a decade back, folks running a regional flood control project apparently wondered if they could tear it down safely. An engineering firm said, basically, ‘yes’.

But Google Street View includes images of the Case building taken in January of 2022.

Google Maps: detail of search results for 'case plaza fargo nd'. (March 6, 2025)Google Maps says there’s a law firm with offices there.

On the other hand, Google Maps also says that Case Plaza is “Permanently closed”.

Gripping as a legal firm operating out of an abandoned warehouse might be as a whodunit’s setting, my guess is that Case Plaza — or at least the building — isn’t entirely “closed”.

For me, that’s good news. I’d be sorry to see the old Case building destroyed, and don’t see the point in tearing it down. It’s near the Red River, but not much higher or lower than the rest of downtown Fargo.

Granted, precious few places in Fargo are higher or lower than any other. Fargo is on what used to be the bottom of Glacial Lake Agassiz: some of the flattest land on Earth, and I’m wandering off-topic.

Before moving on, a quick look at how I caught up with the Case building’s story.

I knew what to look for because I grew up across the river, in Moorhead, Minnesota.

The Internet gives me access to occasional nuggets of useful information, along with mountains of drivel, and that’s definitely another topic.3

This is the sort of thing I found:

Downtown Fargo Historic Case IH Office
Grain Designs

CLIENT: Enclave Companies
LOCATION: Fargo, ND
COMPLETION:
NOV. 2015 | 2018 expansion | 2020 expansion
PROJECT SCOPE:

  • 14 reclaimed douglas fir L office desks and U desks
  • 4 sit stand desks
  • 4 live edge office meeting tables
  • metal and wood binder storage shelves
  • glass top CASE steam engine door table
  • design+build+delivery & installation

Based on that, I figured that someone was converting the Case warehouse to offices around 2015.

Unless the Grain Designs job was for someone remodeling existing office space. I found the vague ‘late 1980s to 1990s’ conversion date in an engineering report.4

Change, Personal Limitations, and a Few Good Ideas

Google Street View: Case Plaza in Fargo, ND. (January 2022)
Case Plaza on NP Avenue and 2nd Street North, Fargo, North Dakota. (January 2022)

I enjoy getting out and seeing places, which is another way in which my wife and I are profoundly unlike. There’s a world of difference between “compatible” and “identical”, and that’s yet another topic.

Getting out and seeing places, physically, isn’t a practical option, so my visits are virtual. Given Google Street View’s limitations, that means my visit to Fargo’s downtown this week was actually to the Fargo downtown that existed in 2021 and 2022.

The car wash that had been across the street west of the Case building was a coffee shop and a gas station. Fargo’s downtown had fewer buildings, more parking lots, and more high-rises than I remember. And they’ve got the start of a skyway system: one over Broadway, and another over 2nd Avenue North. Maybe more.5

That last, I think, is a smart move. I grew up in this part of the world, and like it here: but our winters don’t encourage casual strolls in the great outdoors. And that — you guessed it — is yet again another topic.

Part of an Imperfect Family: and Loving It

I was talking with my third-oldest daughter about the Case building and my father’s way of taking me on what amounted to field trips.

He’s a hard act to follow, but she reassured me that getting taken hither, thither, and yon wasn’t something she’d yearned for.

That was reassuring, although it was a reminder of how long it took me to appreciate the gap between my enthusiasm for getting out and seeing things, and the interests — and capacities — of my wife and our kids.

This isn’t that hypothetical ‘perfect family’ Pope Francis talked about.

“…’We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But,’ Pope Francis recognized, ‘there’ no such thing as a perfect family,’ for each family ‘has its own problems,’ ‘as well as its tremendous joys.’…”
(“Pope’s March prayer intention: ‘for families in crisis’” , Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News (March 4, 2025))

But, somehow, we’ve managed. And every day I think God that I’m part of this family.

I’ve said that before:

1 The J. I. Case Company and Fargo, some context:

2 An eagle, a logo, and a little lore:

3 Where I found what I found, and my take on the Information Age:

4 “…The property was converted to office space during the late 1980s to early 1990s….”:

5 Looks like there is more:

  • Wikipedia
  • Way: Fargo Skyway (316313120), Version #4 (“Updates to Downtown Fargo using Spring 2020 Imagery from ESRI. Block 9, Mercantile Garage, Adjusted Robert’s Commons, added many sidewalks.”)
    OpenStreetMap
Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

“No Such Thing as a Perfect Family”

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Brian H. Gill

One way or another, I’ve been part of a family all my life: as a child, as a husband and father, as a grandfather. The experience has never been perfect. But I think Pope Francis is right. We do, occasionally, have “tremendous joys”.

I also think the pope’s March prayer intention is a good idea:

“Pope’s March prayer intention: ‘for families in crisis’”
“Pope Francis releases his prayer intention for the month of March 2025, and invites everyone to pray for ‘families in crisis,’ as he acknowledges that no family is perfect, but that when we forgive our family members, we can rediscover peace.”
Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News (March 4, 2025)….

“… ‘We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But,’ Pope Francis recognized, ‘there’s no such thing as a perfect family,’ for each family ‘has its own problems,’ ‘as well as its tremendous joys.’…”

I’ve embedded the video that went along with that article:

My prayer routine won’t change because of this. I already “…offer [my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day] for the intentions of our bishops and of all the apostles of prayer, and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month”.

What’ll be different this month is that I know what the pope’s prayer intention is.

As for what “intention” means in this context — the way I’ve seen the word used, a prayer intention is a specific request. Which, in this case, is help for families who are going through rough patches.

That makes sense to me.

I’ve talked about families and rough patches before, and have posted something our parish priest said about families and celebrating life:

Posted in Being Catholic, Journal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments