A me rican Es s e nc e
American Essence FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
Sustenance for the Soul Acclaimed chef Steve McHugh on how life’s challenges led him to find the true spirit of cooking
APRIL 2022
The Food Issue Eat, drink, and be merry! America’s beautiful culinary traditions on display VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 4 ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
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Contents Features 8 | Celebrating the Wild Ramp
This aromatic vegetable, with a taste resembling a cross between onion and garlic, is a harbinger of spring in West Virginia.
14 | Chef Steve McHugh
Armed with the wisdom he gained through overcoming adversity, the acclaimed chef is now creating dishes that are comforting for the soul.
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22 | For the Love of Marionberries What is it about this special blackberry grown exclusively in the Pacific Northwest that makes it so beloved there?
28 | Nashville Meat-and-Threes
Once commonplace throughout the South, this dish with African American roots is still bringing people together from all walks of life.
34 | Florida’s Beachside Wine
The idyllic beach town of Defuniak Springs—with the scent of tanning oil wafting in the air—unexpectedly has the ideal conditions for making fine wine.
38 | Chef Mie Okuda
52 | Pepper Place Farmers Market
In an effort to save small family farms from extinction, Cathy Crenshaw founded a farmers market that grew to offer nourishment and solace for the community.
56 | Julia Child
With wit and humor, the cookbook author and TV show host taught home cooks across the country how to incorporate French techniques in the kitchen.
History
The secret to this Japanese chef’s ability to open successful restaurants is her belief in serving customers what she would feed her own children.
58 | The Louisiana Purchase
42 | Arizona Olive Oil
62 | Henry Thoreau
46 | Midwest Food Traditions
66 | The 40-Year Quest
The award-winning Queen Creek Olive Mill proves that American terroir makes for high-quality extra-virgin olive oil. Capri Cafaro, host of the podcast “Eat Your Heartland Out,” shares insights into the cultural influences that brought about the diverse flavors of Midwestern food. 4
In 1803, President Jefferson’s administration doubled the size of the country for less than 5 cents an acre. New England’s reclusive philosopher has inspired many Americans with his writings, more of which have surfaced recently. Captain Augustus Vignos, wounded on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, spent the next four decades trying to find the woman who nursed him back to health.
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80 72 | Adams’s Defense of the Red-
coats John Adams defended British soldiers who shot and killed colonists, and in so doing, he defended the legal system itself.
76 | Frederick Douglass
96 | Gone Fishing
The Student Angler Federation works to get children to put down their electronics and get back to the great outdoors.
102 | Learned Optimism
The escaped slave who became a wellknown orator and author spoke against slavery with faith and conviction.
With so much negativity coming at us daily, it’s important to seek out the positive and teach children that optimism is contagious.
80 | The Last .400 Hitter
104 | Branding the Classroom
Hard work paid off for Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams in his career as a whole, including one historic year.
84 | Catharine Greene
The wife of a general in the American Revolution, she was instrumental in maintaining troop morale, and also played a key role in the development of the cotton gin.
A Love of Learning 88 | Treasure the Times
Time moves quickly, so it’s important to enjoy every moment with your children and put things into perspective.
92 | A Constant State of Growth
Education need not end with graduation. Opportunities abound to learn new things and skills throughout our lives. ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
A fifth-grade teacher gives each incoming class a unique identity, creating camaraderie, teamwork, and lifelong memories.
Arts & Letters 108 | A Treasure on the Hudson
River As Frederic Edwin Church’s career waned in the 1870s, the painter devoted his energy to creating one last masterpiece—a forever home for his family.
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118 | Paul Newman’s Legacy
Remembered for his cinematic contributions and incredible generosity, the larger-than-life actor left a philanthropic legacy that still impacts people around the world.
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Chefs | Features
Sustenance for the Soul
Steve McHugh’s cooking journey began with washing dishes—now, he works with the finest ingredients. Along the way, a natural disaster opened his eyes to the essence of food and his reason for cooking WRITTEN BY
Catherine Yang
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ive-time James Beard Foundation Award finalist Steve McHugh is nothing short of an acclaimed chef. The owner of the highly respected, game-changing restaurant Cured and the restaurant Landrace, which opened last year, says he really “stumbled right into” becoming a chef. Though McHugh’s introduction to food may have been a happy accident, over the course of his studies and career as a chef, his curiosity and sense of excellence have produced inspiring results. In a way, his story has been about coming full circle and getting at the root of food and sustenance—and American cuisine. “I’m not the star of this show,” said McHugh.
‘If You Want to Go Learn About Food’ New Orleans is where McHugh first made a name for himself. Right out of culinary school, a friend had told him, “If you want to go learn about food, you need to go where the true indigenous food of the U.S. is.” “And that’s New Orleans,” said McHugh. There, he worked in the kitchens of the Brennan Family ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
Restaurants, the Creole chefs Stanley Jackson and Chris Brown, and the John Besh Restaurant Group. Besh, a celebrity chef and philanthropist well known for his efforts in preserving New Orleans heritage cuisine, became a mentor of McHugh’s. In those kitchens, McHugh learned that it wasn’t just about Cajun and Creole—the city was truly a melting pot of cultures and cuisines influencing each other, coming together to make up the flavor of New Orleans. And then Hurricane Katrina hit. “Up until that moment, we had run from storms and we dealt with floods—but that one, that was scary,” McHugh said. He remembers watching the satellite images, seeing a storm the width of the Gulf of Mexico approaching his city. He and his wife had evacuated and were sitting in a crummy motel in Tennessee, just waiting. When it became evident that they couldn’t go back right away, McHugh went to his parents’ home in Wisconsin. McHugh grew up with six brothers, three adopted, on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. His dad was a schoolteacher. His mom was a nurse, then an OB-GYN. 15
Features | Chefs
far right At McHugh’s restaurant, every part of the animal is used for the charcuteriefocused menu. below A dish of mussels made with beer and Tasso ham.
“They just had a lot of love to give, my parents. They’re just amazing, amazing people with so much love to give. My mom especially was one of those people who just gave, and gave, and gave of herself,” said McHugh. “My dad was the same way—it was all about taking care of people.” Living in their small Wisconsin town of some 1,200 people, McHugh never thought he would become a chef. In high school, he got a job washing dishes and fell in love with the energy of the kitchen. That fondness led to many other kitchen jobs, but he didn’t think of them as part of a career path.
“When I was growing up in kitchens, what we call the chef was just some tattooed-up guy who rode his motorcycle in, and he was in charge,” McHugh said. He actually went to school majoring in music, with a saxophone scholarship, but then ended up back at home. “It was my dad who finally sat me down and said, ‘Why don’t you go to culinary school?’” McHugh said. The conversation was eye-opening. “I’m still thankful for that sit-down with my dad, every single day, because it’s truly a blessing to continue to be in kitchens and restaurants and working with great people.” His dad also had a slightly selfish motivation for the talk, however: “I was back living at home,” McHugh quipped, “so part of it was, ‘How long do you think you’re gonna live here at home with your parents?’” “I think he really wanted me to find my way.” And McHugh soon did, delving into The New York Times’ Wednesday food inserts and doing his own research. “I was just looking at recipes and interviews, and reading about different chefs throughout New York City, and was just blown away by what was really possible.” Although he was back at home again after the storm, when McHugh got the call from Besh asking him to come back to New Orleans less than a month later, he was ready. “New Orleans had become my home, and you hate to see your home take a one-two punch like that,” said McHugh. “You want to be a part of helping her get up off the ground and get going again.”
“I’m still thankful for that sit-down with my dad, every single day, because it’s truly a blessing to continue to be in kitchens and restaurants and working with great people.” —ST EVE Mc HUGH
Sustenance Besh was reopening Restaurant August, and McHugh’s response was, “Yeah, let’s go.” It would be under entirely different circumstances—here was a restaurant that was known for using prized ingredients, and now there wasn’t an 16
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abalone or truffle in sight. As McHugh tells it, “John said, ‘Let’s just cook what we have. let’s just cook what we can get our hands on, and we’ll make up the menu.’” As a young chef, McHugh relished opportunities to work with some of the finest ingredients. “Now, you’re so excited when a farmer brings by 12 chickens, or you get your hands on some red beans and you’re able to cook a pot of beans,” he said. “These ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
were things we never cooked in that restaurant before; and now, all of a sudden they’re the most important things we’ve ever cooked in our lives because our customers needed it.” Yet McHugh felt it was sustainable in myriad ways: “It’s sustaining your soul, and cooking for people who needed a lift up. We used to cook for the city’s elite, now we’re just cooking for our own survival and for the people we were cooking for.” 17
Features | Fruits
For the Love of
Marionberries Why the unique blackberry is celebrated in restaurant and home kitchens throughout the Pacific Northwest WRITTEN BY
Eric Lucas
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Marionberries were developed in the early 20th century by crossing two cultivars.
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verybody loves marionberries. Everybody. Though that may seem a bit grandiose, in the 20 years that I have offered anyone a marionberry anything, I’ve never heard a negative, or even humdrum, reaction. Fresh off the vine? “Wow, that’s amazing.” Pie? “So, can I have another piece?” Sorbet? “Geez, that’s good.” And so on. Among family and friends and virtually all guests at my farm, marionberry pie wins the gold medal. This icon of the Pacific Northwest—born and bred here, at Oregon State University in the Willamette Valley—is featured across the region and down the West Coast in ice cream, muffins, pancakes, jams, pies, tarts, sauces, syrups, marinades, crisps, cobblers, sodas, galettes, scones, and more. The plants are robust: production prodigious, reliability high. When I say everybody loves them, I mean that: One morning, I strolled out to my garden to find a fat and happy raccoon perched on top of the marionberry trellis, reaching down to snag ripe berries. Ironically, we had named this raccoon “Barry.” He’s not a problem anymore, as we now have an energetic Weimaraner puppy, and he loves marionberries, too… just as he loves chasing raccoons. But what’s so special about this simple berry that makes canines, raccoons, and humans of all stripes adore it? First of all… ain’t simple. The color, flavor, and 22
aroma of a ripe marionberry are complex and multi-layered. The color seems a plain black until you look close and discover it’s a shimmering indigo, like the predawn sky that hints at what’s to come. Cooked up, that indigo brightens into a vivid Titian magenta; luckily, it launders out easily, because stains are inevitable.
The color, flavor, and aroma of a ripe marionberry are complex and multi-layered. The aroma is a spicy tang, like the sweet smoke from a juniper fire. The texture is firm: Stick them in your fridge for a few days and they hold up fine. And the flavor is an intense sweet-sour with hints of plum, clove, cherry, and rhubarb. An ephemeral, coppery aftertaste adds depth. I’d say marionberry pies and tarts are the most highly flavored pastries of all. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
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Features | Fruits
This gem of flavor, robustness, and utility—the “Cabernet of berries”—represents a triumph of American horticulture. The art of breeding new plants is an ancient human endeavor, but it was given methodical shape and direction in northern California 150 years ago by Luther Burbank, who created more than 800 plant varieties in the process of revolutionizing commercial agriculture. His disciples took up the mantle at state agricultural universities across the country; most new plant introductions in the 20th century came from ag colleges in collaboration with the federal Department of Agriculture. The marionberry arose in the postwar boom of American enterprise, in 1946, when Oregon State College horticulturist George Waldo set out to breed a better commercial blackberry by crossing two existing cultivars, Chehalem and Olallie—the former small but flavorful, the latter big but insipid. But its heritage is not as plain as simply crossing two cultivars. The marionberry family tree resembles the House of Tudor, which produced
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its most famous monarch, Elizabeth I, in its final lineage. Himalayan blackberries, dewberries (wild trailing blackberries), boysenberries, raspberries, loganberries, youngberries, pacific blackberries—all are in the Marion’s genetic background. Today, the marionberry is the leading type of blackberry in commercial cultivation: more than 30 million pounds a year, virtually all of that in Oregon.
More than 30 million pounds of marionberries are produced each year, nearly all in Oregon. The marionberry’s homeland is itself an earthly treasure. The volcanic cones of the Cascade mountains rise to the east, spilling brawny rivers through deep forests to the Willamette bottomlands, where deep soils nurture ancient firs and rowdy, head-high grasses. Oak-clad hills line both sides of the valley, and strands of Pacific cloud grace the high horizon. The air is scented with oak must, earth mold, and distant snow. Summer light rides the far northwest sky until 10 p.m., and winter mists linger among the oaks and firs. Aside from berries, the valley is known for hazelnuts, grass seed, and world-class Pinot Noir. George Waldo started testing his new berry here in 1948 in the fields of Marion County—thus the name (technically, “Marion blackberry”). “Marion is a new blackberry that shows promise of meeting some needs of Oregon’s small fruit industry not fully met by the most widely grown blackberry varieties,” wrote Waldo in his understated 1957 pamphlet introducing the Marion to the Oregon farm industry. His report judged the flavor good, marketability also good, usefulness fine, and the Marion “very desirable for ice cream flavoring.” As with so much that’s fine in this world, there are dues to pay for marionberry treasure. Buy them in a store or farmers market and they are dear indeed—I saw $8 a pint last summer at a farmers market, which fits Waldo’s marketability assessment. That would run the cost of a full-bore pie up to $30 or so (roughly what you’d pay at a good bakery, anyhow). If you want to grow them yourself, that’s easy— to start. Plant the potted starts or bare roots, pro-
Fruits | Features
vide a framework for the canes, and stand back. Given ample water and rich ground, the first year’s canes reach 6 to 8 feet and, since marionberry vines flower and bear fruit in their second summer, will give you a few pints of berries about 15 months after planting. Then, things really get going: In the second year, new canes can reach 20 feet—every year after that, up to 30 feet. Commercial growers usually top them off at 6 feet or so, for ease of picking. I tie mine along wires at a height of 5 feet and make lavish use of the entire 20-foot cane. Once established, production is astounding: From my 40 feet of marionberry row, last summer I harvested about 10 gallons (50 pounds), of which half went in the freezer for winter use and a third were simply eaten out of hand. The remainder made their way into pies—four of them. One acre of commercial marionberry vines in Oregon produces 6 tons of berries, which, by
my rough reckoning, yields about 6,000 pies. Take that, Hostess Twinkies. It grows best here because it prefers our mild climate and is shy of great heat and cold—though at my farm, I’ve seen them grow in 101 F and 10 F weather in the past year, no harm done. So what’s the catch? Wicked thorns. Handling the vines requires thick leather gloves; but even so, some thorns slip through. Picking cannot be done with gloves, so to harvest this treasure, all but the most cautious will come away with berry needles in their fingertips. And every winter, one must cut away the spent, two-year canes to make room for the new second-year canes, and the next summer’s first-year growth. Yep, it takes work. “He that dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose,” said poet Anne Bronte. Marionberries are the Valentine roses of the berry world, and well worth the grasp, even if it’s just dollars. •
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Marionberries are so beloved that they make their way into everything from pies to ice cream and soft drinks.
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Features | Icons
America’s French Chef Julia Child’s ability to integrate a deeply American nature with the elements of French cookery helps explain her dazzling and enduring legacy WRITTEN BY
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fter spending more than five years in Paris, Julia Child went to the south of France in 1953, where her husband, Paul, was assigned duty as a cultural officer at the sleepy American consulate in Marseille. The port city was a “labyrinth,” a city of “hot noise,” Child reflected years later. A short, hardto-endure interval at a hotel yielded to their taking an apartment in the Old Port area. “I was so relieved to have a kitchen, albeit one the size of a sailboat’s galley, that I whipped up a wizard soupe de poisson [strained fish soup] for lunch on our first day in residence.” Child and her co-authors were already deep into their cookbook, a work designed to make French cuisine accessible (living in Marseille would increase her culinary range with soups and fish). The book’s “ideal reader [was] the servantless American cook who enjoyed producing something wonderful to eat,” she stated in “My Life in France,” a memoir written with her grand-nephew Alex Prud’homme. She considered the meticulously developed recipes to be her intellectual property and was upset when an editor shared one from the work-in-progress, leading to her taking countermeasures by writing “Eyes Alone” and “Top Secret” when sending out future sections for evaluation. This glimpse of hard-nosed Julia should come as no 56
Ronald Ahrens
surprise. After all, during World War II, she handled espionage materials while serving in the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. Although Child died in 2004 at the age of 91, her legend endures and even grows. For example, her TV kitchen and copper pans are on view at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of
Until Julia Child’s cookbook, ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking,’ was published, Americans had regarded fresh fish and produce with suspicion. American History. And besides being the subject of biographies and memoirs, the gourmand has proven a compelling cinematic subject. Meryl Streep’s Oscarnominated portrayal in “Julie and Julia” is indelible. The 2009 film is based on Julie Powell’s account of cooking 524 of Child’s recipes in a small New York
apartment. Co-star Amy Adams’ portrayal of Powell is capped by a scene in which she visits Child’s kitchen at the museum and, in touching tribute, leaves a stick of butter. Before Thanksgiving of 2021, the documentary “Julia” was released, with co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West giving a straightforward account of Child’s life. When the filmmakers first considered the story, they asked, “Well, why is it that in the ’70s and ’80s, people really started cooking?” It was largely Child’s influence, West told the Los Angeles Times. “She sparked something that so changed the culture.” Filming has begun for the forthcoming HBO Max series, also titled “Julia,” which stars Sarah Lancashire in the eponymous role. “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” Child’s 1961 landmark work written with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, spent years atop bestseller lists. Until then, Americans had regarded fresh fish and produce with suspicion; supermarket aisles of the era were loaded with canned fruits and vegetables, powdered drink mixes, and frozen dinners. The savors of herbs were little known; part of Child’s lesson was about shopping for yourself and choosing the best ingredients. The recent documentary goes to lengths to illustrate how different Child was from other women on television when “The French Chef” debuted two AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Icons | Features
above
Julia Child cooking in her kitchen in 1978.
years after the book’s publication. Paul and Julia had settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Boston’s public television affiliate WGBH filmed her maneuvers in extended takes, resulting in the opportunity to improvise not only with the cooking—she advised the viewer never to apologize for mistakes— but also with her ad-libs. Of course, we crave the nuances of Child’s recipe for an authentic bouillabaisse or her best technique for slicing up a chicken, but she couldn’t have facilitated the transition from master chef to celebrity chef without her singular verbal ability. (“The French Chef” now streams on the service Pluto TV.) Growing up in Pasadena, California, ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
Julia McWilliams wanted to be a writer, and her private school education and history degree from Smith College left her well-equipped even if, as she is quoted in the documentary as saying, she was “a butterfly.” She went on to prove herself formidable, blunt, and of a sound critical intelligence. She managed to score with naturalness. As to the reason, “My Life in France” offers a clue—namely, her way with words. Becoming fluent in French, she prowled the marketplace’s inner stalls and listened to every fishwife’s formula for a hearty soup stock. Even at the end of the Childs’ diplomatic career, when Paul was posted to Oslo, she learned enough Norwegian to read the newspa-
per and handle the shopping. On the one hand, Julia Child could adopt a professorial tone. An example is found in this assertion: “I devoted myself to piscatory research, as we tried to systematize the nomenclature and cookability of French-EnglishAmerican fish for our readers.” On the other hand, she sprinkles in obscure but whimsical words like “collywobbles” for “bellyache,” delivers contemporary slang like “dullsville,” and drops fanciful nouns like “balderdash,” “nincompoop” and “the Real McCoy.” Additionally, she displayed a knack for alliteration and poetic free association, as in the account of a trip from Nice: “We drove back to Marseille through the arrière-pays [hinterland] of scraggle-topped crags—their tops powder-sugared with snow—and forests of pine and cork oak.” Besides Emmy and Peabody plaudits for her cooking show, she also won a National Book Award in 1980, for her cookbook “Julia Child and More Company.” Still, for all of her sophistication and accomplishments, Child was the prankster who, in the early 1920s, had whizzed around Pasadena on her bike. She smoked her father’s cigarettes and cigars, threw mud-balls at cars, and dropped rocks from an overpass onto passing trains. Once, while prowling around a house construction site with a friend, she got stuck in the chimney. She had started out conventional enough, and that would account for her desire, upon returning to America from France in 1954, to eat “an honest-to-goodness American steak!” she recounted in “My Life in France.” Unfussy and unassuming, Child always had something of the Stars and Stripes about her even when she recalled “the pleasures of the table, and of life” in her memoir, before signing off, “Toujours bon appétit!” • 57
History | American Authors
New England’s Reclusive Philosopher Henry Thoreau has inspired many Americans with his writings, more of which have surfaced recently WRITTEN BY
Andrew Benson Brown
H
enry David Thoreau accomplished a great deal in his short but busy life as a philosopher, activist, and naturalist. His profound influence as the grandfather of environmentalism and nonviolent resistance movements is difficult to overstate. As if this were not enough, he even improved the quality of pencils by innovating a method of binding graphite with clay. His own century largely ignored him, though. The reigning opinion about Thoreau in his day—at least according to his fellow citizens of Concord, Massachusetts—was that he was an idle good-for-nothing: a man who, with hardly a penny to his name, spent his time scribbling in notebooks and decrying perceived injustices instead of making a living. With our hindsight, it is easy to blame Thoreau’s contemporaries for tunnel vision. But to look at the outward events of his unorthodox life, one would not think him a likely candidate for future greatness. At the age of 27, he was something akin to the modern-day college graduate who, unable to find suitable employment, still lives with his parents. It was at this age, though, in 1845, when he embarked on the experiment for which he would become world famous: moving to Walden Pond to live in solitude. The book that resulted from this experience, “Walden: Or, Life in the Woods,” has been called the bible of American nature writing, and for good reason: it is a fount of timeless wisdom. Proverbial observations and advice on living flow forth and almost seem to have been written by some bearded seer of ancient Israel or Athens. 62
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A brief sampling of these may allow one to get a sense of Thoreau’s worldview: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” left Portrait photograph from a daguerreotype of Henry David Thoreau.
Walden Pond at the Walden Woods near Concord, Mass. above
right Original title page of “Walden,” with an illustration by Thoreau’s sister Sophia.
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“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify!” “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Thoreau did more than simply write such principles—he lived them. A disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was intent on practicing the Transcendentalist ideals his mentor wrote 63
History | American Authors
about: nonconformity, self-reliance, and seeing God in the workings of nature. The first of these doctrines, nonconformity, got him into trouble when he was jailed for refusing to pay his taxes, unwilling to pay a government that supported slavery and the war with Mexico. The ordeal would prompt him to write an essay, “Civil Disobedience,” that advocated peaceful resistance to immoral government policies—a treatise that would be read by both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. While Thoreau’s dissenting disposition earned him the ire of his fellow citizens, this did not seem to bother him a bit. As he wrote in the essay, “Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.”
The reigning opinion about Thoreau in his day was that he was an idle good-for-nothing. The Walden Years He was living at Walden Pond when he was jailed for tax evasion, having journeyed to town on errands. Other than this, his two-year residence in nature was without public incident. “Walden” chronicles Thoreau’s time spent building a cabin, 64
farming, fishing, and observing flora and fauna in great detail. In a book full of so many recognizable quotes, one sentence is perhaps more famous than the rest—indeed, one of the most famous sentences in all of American literature. In the second chapter, he provides the reader with his mission statement: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Simple living is, above all, inexpensive. In the book’s first chapter, “Economy,” he catalogs the cost of the resources used to build his cabin ($28.12, or slightly less than $1,000 today) and grow crops ($14.73—a little more than $500 now). Though he used hired labor to plough his twoand-a-half-acre field, his own shovel did the rest. He earned back $23.44 of his expenses in his first year of bean farming (about $800). Though his net profits were modest, he concluded that, “considering the importance of a man’s soul today, … AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
American Authors | History
its materials and interior design. Thoreau did not hesitate to note the moral effects of his specific furniture: “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
above left A geodetic marker at Thoreau’s gravesite. above A replica of Thoreau’s cabin and a statue of him near Walden Pond.
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I believe I was doing better than any farmer did that year.” While he remarks that his income was “better” the second year, he does not put a number to this success. In addition to farming, he also took odd jobs as a carpenter, surveyor, and mason. In all, Walden’s balance sheet showed that a spare and rustic lifestyle was not as impractical as his neighbors thought. It is still possible to visit Walden Pond today. Thanks to conservation efforts by rock star Don Henley (founding member of The Eagles), its 335 acres of preserved land sits nestled around a community that is far more urbanized than it was two centuries ago. It is not difficult to imagine what Thoreau would have thought of the two busy highway routes that intersect the reserve. Once in the park, though, it is as if stepping into the past: one can walk a network of nature trails to visit Thoreau’s cabin, bean field, and swimming cove, or boat on the waters where he fished under moonlight. His cabin has been precisely reconstructed based on his own descriptions of
A Posthumous Legacy After leaving Walden Pond, he would continue to document his thoughts in his journal, publishing two books and numerous essays before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 44. His writings, many of them posthumously published, languished in relative obscurity for decades, and even those who knew Thoreau best thought that he had squandered his talent. In his eulogy of his former pupil, Emerson lamented, “I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry-party.” It was not until the 20th century that Thoreau’s important legacy would be acknowledged, a reappraisal that Emerson alluded to when, in the same eulogy, he prophesied, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost.” It is a legacy that continues to bear fruit in unexpected ways as, recently, a “new” book was unearthed. While Thoreau always described the natural world with precision, his later writings took a more overtly scientific turn. He collected plant specimens in his hat during long walks and kept a detailed botanical catalog of hundreds of species. Planning to turn these observations into a book-length study, he was still working on this project when he died. For nearly 150 years, this final chapter of his story ended there. But then, an amazing thing happened: A determined scholar, Bradley Dean, recovered these widely dispersed charts and notes, painstakingly organized them, and deciphered their nearly illegible handwriting. In 2000, Dean published this last, unfinished manuscript under the title “Wild Fruits,” which helped revive Thoreau’s reputation as a serious naturalist. Originality and influence often arise in surprising places, and in his lifetime the recluse of Concord embodied his own well-known observation: “To be great is to be misunderstood.” But time brings all things to light, and thanks to his compulsive journaling habits, we are now in a position to understand Thoreau better than almost any of his contemporaries did. Millions of people continue to look to him as a source of wisdom for navigating the complexities of the modern world, inspired to simplify their lives. And since the world is not becoming any less complex, this interest shows no sign of abating. • 65
The Last
.400 Hitter Hard work paid off for Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams in his career as a whole, including one historic year WRITTEN BY
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Rachel Pfeiffer
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left Ted Williams in his rookie year of 1939. below Ted Williams on a 1948 Leaf baseball card.
Ted Williams being sworn into the military on May 22, 1942. right
ll I want out of life is that when I walk down the street folks will say, ‘There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived,’” Ted Williams once said. The debate about the greatest hitter of all time will never be settled, but Williams’s amazing career with the Red Sox ensured he will always be part of the conversation. Williams played 19 seasons and still served in two wars. Even though he lost five years in the prime of his career to military service, he hit milestones other players can only dream of. On September 28, 1960, Ted Williams played his last major league game. Coming off his worst season in 1959, Williams returned to play a final season at age 41. The season itself had been a miracle, with Williams passing the 500-homer mark and once again batting well over .300. On this particular fall day, the fans came hoping to see one last grand miracle from the Kid—to see the ball arch and fly over that outfield wall. Williams walked in the first, flied out in the third, and flied out again in the fifth. He came to bat again in the eighth, receiving an ovation from the crowd. They willed with all their might for
the Splendid Splinter to end his career with the same excitement and clutch hitting they’d witnessed from the beginning, with the same magnificent swing he developed as a kid in California. The Big Leagues Williams’s extraordinary life and career began in San Diego. Though not a child of a happy home, he nevertheless managed to find friends and mentors everywhere he went. Baseball quickly became a part of his life. “Hundreds of kids have the natural ability to become great ballplayers, but nothing except practice, practice, practice will bring out that ability,” Williams said. Williams swung a bat whenever he had the chance. He starred first at Hoover High, then signed with the San Diego Padres. The Padres weren’t part of the major leagues yet, but Williams’s play drew the attention of the Boston Red Sox.
The fans came hoping to see one last grand miracle from the Kid. In 1938, Williams attended spring training with the Red Sox but failed to make the roster. He played a year in the minor leagues in Minnesota, then successfully made the 1939 roster at the age of 20. He was an instant success, driving in 145 runs in his rookie year and batting .344 in his second season. These seasons, however, were simply the prologue to his great 1941 effort. Many remember the 1941 season as the year of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. However, ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
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while DiMaggio strung together one hit after another, Williams was doing the same. But instead of chasing a consecutive game hitting streak, he was chasing .400. Bill Terry had achieved a .401 batting average about a decade before, and Williams was convinced he would be next. Opposing pitching didn’t intimidate him in the least. “How can they stop me from hitting? They couldn’t stop me my first year, and they couldn’t stop me my second. They won’t stop me my third,” Williams said. He was right—the pitchers couldn’t stop him. “Part of Ted’s great success as a hitter was the way he studied pitchers,” manager Joe Cronin said. “Even then he got to know more about the pitcher than the pitcher knew about himself.” From Williams’s home run in the 9th inning to win the All-Star Game to his competition with DiMaggio, the 1941 season was pure magic. Williams entered the final series of the season with his batting average teetering on the edge of .400. After the first game in that series, his average was .39955. The last two games of the season were a doubleheader. Williams went 4-for-5 in the first game, raising his average to .404. He went 2-for-3 in the final game to bring his average to .406. No major league player has hit over .400 since.
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The Pilot The bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 launched the United States into World War II and resulted in over 500 major league ballplayers entering the service. Williams played the 1942 season, but during that time he enlisted in the V-5 pilot training program. Williams progressed through the classes and training, eventually receiving his wings on May
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2, 1944. He received overseas orders on August 18, 1945, which took him to Pearl Harbor. However, he wouldn’t go any further. He was released from the Marines on January 12, 1946. In the following years, Williams played in the only World Series of his career, a losing effort to the Cardinals. He continued to rack up hits and homers, but the Red Sox teams he played on never again had a chance at the title. The Korean War began in 1950, and in 1952, Williams learned he was being called back into the service. The Marines were desperate for pilots. Williams, along with almost every World War II veteran being called back for another war, felt he had already done his duty. However, he vowed to do the best he could for his country once again. In February 1953, Williams arrived in Korea. This time, he was right in the middle of the action. His first combat flight nearly killed him. After dropping his load of bombs, Williams flew back toward friendly territory. However, mechanical issues soon alerted him to the fact that he’d been hit. The procedures indicated he should bail out over the Yellow Sea and wait for rescue, but Williams knew he wouldn’t survive long enough to be rescued from the freezing water. He also knew that his large, 6-foot-3 frame would likely be seriously injured by the unreliable ejection seat. A young pilot came to his rescue. Ted Williams in his U.S. Navy uniform signing autographs in Kokomo, Ind., in 1944. Others in the photograph (L–R): Ralph King, Richard “Dick” Rainbolt, Haines Sleeth, and Johnny Pesky. Pesky was Williams’s teammate in Boston. above left
left While searching for photographic subjects in a remote Korean fishing village in June 1953, Ted Williams paused to eat a live clam offered by a native diving woman. Korean children watch his reaction.
Ted Williams’s plaque, displayed at the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in Fenway Park. above right
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Opposing pitching didn’t intimidate him in the least. Larry Hawkins realized Williams’s plane was hit and leaking fuel. In the event of a crash landing, this created a huge problem: fire. Hawkins motioned for Williams to follow him, and the two sped higher and faster into the sky, trying to keep fuel from pooling in the engine. When they were almost to a base where they could land, Williams lowered his landing gear. The plane caught fire, and Williams rocketed toward the ground with the plane ablaze. He hit the landing strip at a speed of over 200 mph. The plane skidded down the long runway, pieces of it flying off along the way. When the plane finally stopped, Williams jumped out unhurt. The Red Sox slugger had survived his first combat flight.
After 39 missions, Williams received a release from combat due to persistent respiratory issues. He soon returned to action on the baseball field. In the end, his storied baseball career boasted a lifetime batting average of .344, the all-time best on-base percentage of .482, 2,654 hits, and 521 home runs. His home run that is best remembered, though, might very well be the last one he hit. The Last Day The fans imagined they could will Ted Williams to one final, glorious at-bat on that September day in 1960. The Kid stepped into the box like he had so many times before. Williams took a ball. On the next pitch, he swung and missed at a high slider. The crowd held its breath. Next came the fastball, and Williams was ready. He drove it high through the air. Back over the wall it sailed—back into stories told over dinner, back into Red Sox history, back into baseball lore. A last miraculous moment for one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game. Giving the speech for his Hall of Fame induction years later, Williams summed up his feelings about the game he played and the country he served. “I’m grateful and know how lucky I was to have been an American and had a chance to play the game I love—the greatest game of all—baseball.” • 83
Section | Overline
Gone Fishing A favorite pastime lures students to the lake WRITTEN BY
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n any given day throughout the year, student anglers are dropping lines in America’s plethora of lakes. Time spent out on the water might just pay off with a little bit of imagination, a little bit of expertise, and a little bit of luck. For many of them, the fundamental purpose is to catch a bass of the large or small mouthed species, learning tricks of the trade that might make payday if they qualify at their state championship. In the last two decades, fishing has become one of the fastest growing movements for youth. The Student Angler Federation (SAF) is a grassroots fishing organization that The Bass Federation started in order to help bring awareness and education to the fishing sports. Parents and kids have been hooked on the sport ever since, with clubs forming in almost every state. What culminates as the end game each year is SAF’s championships—national and international—each summer for youth teams that qualify. Teams are made up of two youth anglers with one adult mentor in a boat, practicing and competing throughout the season. “We are mentoring and teaching about the sport of fishing, but we are also helping these kids set and attain goals,” said Joey Bray. His position as SAF’s National Youth Director for High School Fishing leads him to find the best ways to get students to leave their couches to experience the best of the outdoors. “We need interaction. Kids should be outdoors instead of on their sofas and recliners, affixed on these phones or gaming,” he quipped. “How can you have an intellectual conversation with a phone in your hand? There has to be limitations.” And kids do get hooked on the sport. These students engage in real-world activities where they are forced to think on their feet. “Do they know how to go from clean water to stained water and having to change bait? Or how to cull the fish? Or calculate run times, which involve math, including geometry?” asks Bray. Bray admits some of these kids will be taking his job one day. He says he was simply a dad who volunteered for the youth angler program because his son started fishing. His son eventually won the top graduating angler award in the state of Oklahoma his senior year of high school. Naturally, youth anglers have dreams of going
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pro. Fishing for bass at an early age in junior fishing programs, students hope to be the next Jacob Wheeler. Ranked as the No. 1 bass fisherman with tournament winnings superseding over $2 million, Wheeler started at an early age in the junior fishing program in 2010. Bray admits, “Even though there is a slim chance, some of them are phenomenal.” Even if they don’t make it into the professional fishing elite, he continued, they will enter the workforce with inestimable life skills. Yet volunteers are essential to the clubs’ successes. Inexperienced anglers—be they parents, grandparents, or young adults—can pass along invaluable life lessons. With Bray’s guidance and experience as a mentor and volunteer, those who step up can provide coaching in the boat or assist and lead as youth directors for clubs. Ample investment of time and knowledge gained from a mentor isn’t just about earning a spot to compete at the national and world competitions in June. “It is a great opportunity to be with our kids in high school and participate in the program,” said Bray. SAF membership, at the cost of $25, is the
only requirement for a student to fish in any SAF state championship. Insurance is included in the student membership fee, the program is fully Title IX compliant, and it does not cost a school anything to start a club. Private, public, or home-
“It is a great opportunity to be with our kids in high school and participate in the program.” —J O EY BRAY
schooled student members, who maintain a 2.0 or better GPA, can qualify at the state championship events and subsequently gain entry into the national championship. If they compete for the national title, they may also qualify for the world final championship on the final day of competition.
Leslie Redding and Anna Hokamp are top members of the all-female team at the Student Angler Federation. above right
right The champions of the 12th Annual High School Fishing World Finals, Andrew Jones and Carson Underwood. left Kayak anglers Zachary and Brandon Verbrugge won fourth place at the 12th annual High School Fishing World Finals.
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The competitions are not federally funded. Prizes and educational scholarships tend to be big money, but there are no cash handouts and no entry fees for student competitors. Sponsors appreciate the program’s bigger purpose, aside from just learning to fish, and keep the programs going strong. “This program is absolutely 110 percent about the kids. Period. The reward is beneficial for all involved. Honestly, it’s a game changer for these kids and beneficial for our whole country.” Bray knows that some of the students were skipping school, flunking, or doing drugs, but the program has given them a new opportunity to succeed. Today, SAF hosts state championship tournaments in 46 states. In 2010, the first ever world finals was held at Lake Dardanelle in Arkansas, a 34,300-acre reservoir on the Arkansas River. With 397 teams competing last year, organizers project bigger numbers at this year’s 13th Annual High School Fishing World Finals & National Championship in Florence, Alabama. Youth anglers will fish Pickwick and Wilson Lakes for trophy-sized largemouth and smallmouth bass within 490 shoreline miles. And Florence is where avid angler Harry Ladner hopes to be with his daughter’s team this June. A father of six, Ladner has had four children compete at a national level. “My daughter Izzi has been fishing since she was a little kid, probably out on the water at 2 years old. On a state run level, this is her fifth season competing. She’s 13 now and likes the competition, the drive to do better, the challenges that fishing presents. Izzi and her father also compete as a team in other venues, having won over 10 tournaments together. Izzi, he says, has her sights set on competing in the International Bass Association. Ladner not only mentors but recruits students ages 9–17 years all across the state through local fishing clubs and high school athletic directors. He volunteers as the youth director for the South Dakota Bass Federation and believes recruiting young anglers is a good stepping stone for high school programs. He has experienced firsthand the opportunities that abound when kids get hooked on fishing. Life skills, yes. Moreover, he says it’s a great program to start and then to take fishing to the next level, competing in tournaments. “We help teach them how to wade fish, cull fish, operate the boat, and use electronics for locating structures under the water. We watch for stumps and trees and to pinpoint objects in the water that are not fish. You want to find the objects, but you want to fish near them because ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
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that’s where the bass are.” His word of advice is to get involved and get in touch with a youth director or join a youth club. Each club director will help navigate how to get students in a boat or with a youth angler who may already have a boat. Bray agrees. There is no minimum age in the junior program, and parents decide if their child is old enough. The organization’s youth directors desire to serve families, helping them join or start programs in their area. It’s catching on as parents learn more about the competitions and how to get involved. “I’ve had kids as young as 9 or 10 years old show up at the national competition. They are like miniature adults, blowing your socks off at the events.” Bray continued, “You’ve got lady anglers giving the guys a run for the money, too. They all want to win. If one angler is having a hard day, their team player could be doing great—catching a good fish lights a fire in them.” He touts the competitions as offering good, clean, family fun. Families offer hugs, appreciating the opportunity that the program provides. “They make your throat swell up. It is quite a rewarding experience because you’ve helped that family.” That’s what it’s all about, he says. “These kids are our future. They are the future of our country.” • ISSU E 4 | AP R I L 2 02 2
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