For those who may be interested here is a public service announcement informing you that part one of Ken Burns’s four-hour documentary on Benjamin Franklin premiers tonight. Here is more via the PBS page on the film, complete with bonus material.

(image/Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Good morning, all. It is a beautiful day after the light rain and overcast Christmas we had yesterday. The weather gave a nice ambiance to the day. It is less pronounced because December 26 this year has fallen on a Sunday but I have never understood why Boxing Day is not observed in the United States. Don’t get me wrong; I understand the historical reasons why it is observed in the Commonwealth and not here, but culturally it has always seemed to me a holiday we should have here. Whatever you do and wherever you are, enjoy your day.

This incredible photograph was taken one hundred years ago today on November 11, 1921. There were a number of Korean and Korean-American communities in the West in the early decades of the twentieth century and this photograph almost certainly was taken in one of those communities, probably in California. I did a shallow dive trying to learn more based on the few kernels in the image’s metadata but unfortunately could not establish anything truly definitive beyond the few nuggets already there. In the few hours remaining please do stop for a few moments and remember Armistice Day.

Back in mid July someone in the family, knowing that I have become something of the unofficial clan historian, emailed me asking for some details about one of our ancestors. I have been doing our genealogy for ~20 years now, my involvement often waxing and waning depending on how busy I am at work, the status of different projects, and just life in general. Recently I had gotten away from it for the better part of two years, essentially since just prior to the pandemic. Thankfully I had the answer to the question he was looking for. His query sent me down a rabbit hole and for about 7-10 days I dug further into the family history, finding things I never knew before. Genealogy is a lot of detail work in which one leaves a lot on the fall because one is not entirely certain if the piece of data is correct. When in doubt, leave it out.

I noticed on the family tree back in July that my great-grandmother was born on October 28, 1896, 125 years ago today. That was one week before the first William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan presidential election. She died on October 29, 1986, one day after her ninetieth birthday. If you are keeping track, that is 35 years ago tomorrow. When I noticed that three months ago I jotted it down in my daily planner and told myself I would email 5-6 people in the immediate and extended family with this information. Early this morning I did just that. My own father repeatedly told us when his health began to fail that he did not expect or want us to dwell exceedingly about him once he left this world. He emphasized that life was for the living and that we should live ours while we still can. I have taken that to heart. Still, I carry his legacy, as well as those like my great-grandmother, who I faintly remember, with me. If you have not done any of your own family history, I would encourage you to do so. What is more, I would start as soon as possible before those who might remember important details are gone. It is later than you think. Today my own work paid off when I was able to share the life and memory of someone a few of us remember from an earlier time in our own lives.

I have been cleaning the house in preparation for the coming fall weather. Part of this has included thinning the home library of some books I no longer need, usually titles I bought second-hand for past projects. One must move on and make room for the new. I always skim through a book to make sure I haven’t left anything inside. Yesterday I did just that to one old title and out fell what you see above. It is a Pullman ticket from back in the day. In and of itself there is nothing unusual about it. The ticket is just a piece of the everyday detritus of life, something one would purchase for one’s trip and then discard upon reaching the destination much in the way I discarded my Metro-North ticket last Saturday at Grand Central upon returning from Connecticut after a day trip. Millions of others do it daily as well. It is the Pullman part that makes it interesting. Our long-lost friend used his ticket for a bookmark, which yesterday I found nearly a century later. I have it magnetted to the refrigerator.

Unfortunately the handwriting is so bad that I cannot make out the destination or even the date. The book from which it fell was published in 1927, so I assume it is from around that time. I am guessing that this was not a sleeper car. The fare was $.75, which indicates it was more of a commuter trip than long-distance journey. I plugged that amount into an inflation calculator and the fare would be the equivalent in today’s dollars to ~$10-12. Certainly an overnight ride cost more than that, but I really don’t know. The railroads were hugely important in American society until as recently as the late 1950s and early 1960s, not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. It was the airplane, the automobile, and the Highway Act of 1956 that dealt the fatal blows. Yesterday like an autumn leaf a little reminder of that old world fell on the living room floor.