Tag Archives: Thoreau

Shower Thoughts of Thoreau

by Woody

A cliché, overworn to threads, has it that something really boring is “like watching paint dry.”

While I have never felt obliged to test the truth of this adage, in my experience watching someone paint can be the diametric opposite of dull. An artist at work on a canvas, or a person painting a wall with a hand so steady he or she doesn’t need painter’s tape to protect the ceiling and baseboards, can be quite spellbinding.

Indeed, when admirable skill is involved, I can sit for a good long while watching a master at task in most any endeavor. I once watched, totally entranced for an hour, a bricklayer methodically and expertly erect a wall – tall and square and handsome.

Shortly thereafter, by coincidence or perhaps serendipity, I came across a passage by Henry David Thoreau that resonated beautifully. Thoreau has a way of doing that. This time it was in “Walden: or Life in the Woods,” specifically in Chapter 13 titled “House-Warming,” where he descriptively wrote in part:

“When I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. My bricks being second-hand ones required to be cleaned with a trowel, so that I learned more than usual of the qualities of bricks and trowels… I filled the spaces between the bricks about the fireplace with stones from the pond shore, and also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place… I was so pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by degrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated to endure a long time.”

“Casa Joyous Garde,” as our Woodburn abode has been nicknamed, is currently undergoing its own house-warming, to use Thoreau’s hyphenated spelling – or, rather, a modest house-remodeling. And so it is that I watched Thoreau build a chimney “rising to the heavens,” as he noted – or, rather, Adan build two glass-block walls rising to the ceiling for a walk-in shower.

Instead of second-hand bricks, Adan used brand-new blocks, each roughly 8 inches square by 4 inches thick. The blocks, it turns out, are not quite uniform in size, thus adding a degree of difficulty in making the walls flat and true with each horizontal row perfectly level.

Accomplishing this required deftly altering the spaces between – a little extra mortar when the blocks were a tad smaller than their neighbors; slightly less mortar when they were a smidgen larger; with the end work pleasingly rising so square and solid by degrees.

Even watching Adan mix his own stone-white mortar was to witness an artisan at his craft. Much like a baker kneading bread, alternately adding a touch more flour or a sprinkle of water, until achieving the ideal consistency and elasticity, here a texture was required smooth enough for spreading mortar – called “buttering” in mason-ese – onto the blocks, yet thick enough to hold form.

Like Thoreau’s chimney, the glass walls with an adjoining rounded corner proceeded slowly to rise, 84 blocks in all, until reaching a height of nine feet. It is now easy to reflect that it was calculated to endure a long time. Indeed, after the mortar hardened fully, Adan pounded on his handiwork with the heel of his fist – Thump! THUMP! – so hard as to echo loudly, then smiled widely and said proudly: “It’s very strong! Very, very solid!”

Thoreau also wrote, “Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of it.” Adan displayed such a love for his work. Likewise, I loved watching him at it.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Road Trip rolls on to T.R.’s House

by Woody

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Penciling in a Thrill on Road Trip

Third in a series of columns chronicling my recent father-son travels from Paul Revere’s gravesite in Boston to John Steinbeck’s writing cabin in Long Island, and more.

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It was like seeing a Stradivarius violin, only better. Imagine eyeballing one of Babe Ruth’s bats – that he lathed himself. Or a paintbrush made by Rembrandt.

Such was the goose-bump thrill I had at the New York Public Library when I came head-to-lead with a pencil made by Henry David Thoreau. Even visiting the great writer’s home in Concord, Massachusetts, three summers past, I had not come across one of his graphite-and-wood handiworks.

Another surprise: the pencil is three-sided, not round.

My arm hairs stood at attention as I imagined Thoreau using this pencil to write down his thoughts about learning to “live deliberately” during his famous stay of two years, two months and two days at Walden Pond.

Serendipity had smiled. To my “collection” of typewriters I have seen that belonged to famous authors I added: “Thoreau’s Pencil*.”

The asterisk is needed because it was not possible for Thoreau to lug a typewriter into the woods in 1845 since the first commercially successful machine did not come out until 1868. Moreover, it is doubtful Thoreau would have used a QWERTY keyboard anyway. “Simplify, simplify” after all.

Enjoying a bully good time at T.R.'s Sagamore Hill.

Enjoying a bully good time at Theodore Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill.

And so Thoreau’s Pencil* joined my list that includes Jim Murray’s 1946 Remington Rand; Thornton Burgess’ 1910 Underwood No. 5; Eleanor Roosevelt’s circa 1904-1905 Smith & Corona L C Smith Super Speed; and John Steinbeck’s Swiss-made circa 1950 Hermes Baby.

Only moments later, also unexpectedly on display in the New York Public Library, came another addition: novelist/screenwriter Terry Southern’s battleship-grey Olympia typewriter.

My collection expanded once more, and once more by surprise, the very next day when my son and I drove 40 miles northeast of the New York Public Library to Oyster Bay, Long Island. Specifically, we visited Theodore Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill home – known also as “The Summer White House” from 1902 through 1908.

With a hilltop view and wide veranda, the three-story Queen Anne-style mansion is grand on the outside. Inside it is no less impressive, its 23 rooms collectively filled to bursting with T.R.’s bully energy, artwork (countless Remington bronze sculptures) and books (8,000 volumes) and hunting trophies shot by “The Old Lion” himself.

Most breathtakingly bully of all the big-game hides, tusks and mounted animals is a massive Cape buffalo head in the entry parlor. Displayed at its actual height were the beast standing, the menacing ebony horns seem ready to charge and gore each visitor.

A different trophy caught my attention upstairs on the third floor. At the end of the hallway in T.R.’s study, which he called “The Gun Room,” a thread linking some past road trips to the New York Public Library now weaved into the present: Theodore Roosevelt’s black-and-gold Remington Standard Typewriter No. 6.

As with his niece Eleanor Roosevelt, I had not thought of T.R. as a writer. This was my great oversight, twice over, for Eleanor authored 28 books while Theodore surpassed that and greatly. Between 1882 (“The Naval War of 1812: Part I”) and 1919 (“Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children”), T.R. penned 47 volumes.

Due east 80 miles from T.R.’s hilltop Eden overlooking Oyster Bay, driving a rental car past the Hampton Bays and nearly to the tip of Long Island, another author’s home awaited us this same day.

This was the trophy destination our entire road trip had been planned around: a famous author’s home and backyard writing cabin he named “Joyous Garde.”

Indeed, the joy was to continue.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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Pilgrimage to ‘Authors Ridge’

by Woody

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Pilgrimage to Bridge and ‘Authors Ridge’

This is the second in a four-column series on my recent travels to the Eastern Seaboard to visit my son – and visit much more.

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1NoethBridge

The Old North Bridge, in Concord, Mass.

Sixty miles north of Plymouth Rock, I made a pilgrimage to another “ground zero” in American history: the Old North Bridge in Concord, Mass., where the Revolutionary War erupted on April 19, 1775.

The replica bridge, like Plymouth Rock, proved much smaller in person than anticipated. Also, similarly, it made my imagination whirl as I surveyed the landscape, my sight rising from the Concord River to the high ground where the Minute Men held the advantage.

Surprisingly, a different ridge proved to be a higher highlight for me.

On our rental-car drive to the Old North Bridge, my wife and I made a short detour to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Specifically, to the upper area near the back called “Authors Ridge.”

1AuthorsRidgeIt is a fitting name because on this picturesque-as-a-thousand-words tree-shaded ridge, all within an acorn’s toss of each other, are the graves of four significant 19th Century American authors: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Call it Ridge Rushmore.

First up is the Thoreau family plot which has a shared monument stone the size of a chest of drawers bearing the names, birth dates and dates of death of parents John and Cynthia D., as well as their offspring John Jr., Helen L., Henry D. (Born July 12, 1817, Died May 6, 1862) and Sophia E.

Surrounding the monument are six small headstones, each barely bigger than a hardcover book, reading: Mother, Father, Sophia, John, Helen and …

… Henry.

How perfect this is, for as he famously advised during his life: “Simplify, simplify.” No dates. No full name. Simply “HENRY” in all caps.

Modest be it, Henry’s marker readily stands out for it is decorated like a Christmas tree, albeit instead of with ornaments and lights it is adorned with a classroom’s worth of pens and pencils of various colors leaning against it, some with messages and names – “Thank You” and “Bless You” and “Anna” and “Steven” on this day – written on them by worshipers who made the pilgrimage to pay homage.

This shows you how very small, and simple, HENRY's marker is.

This shows you how very small, and simple, Thoreau’s HENRY marker is.

Originally, I left behind a pen but quickly thought the better of it and instead balanced a yellow No. 2 pencil – after writing “Simplify” and “Woody” on it – for in addition to being a writer, poet, philosopher, naturalist and surveyor, Thoreau was a renowned pencil maker.

The headstone for the author of “The Scarlet Letter” is slightly larger than Henry’s marker, and rests upon a pedestal, yet it too is simple, reading only: Hawthorne. It also has a few pens left at its base, as well as coins and stones balanced upon its arched top.

A flat rectangular stone, whitened by the elements and flush to the ground, marks the grave of Louisa M. Alcott, author of “Little Women.” A Union nurse during the Civil War, Alcott’s grave also has a small American flag, the sort a child might wave curbside at a Fourth of July parade, with a “U.S. Veteran” medallion on its staff. Expectedly, the site is graced with a collection of pencils and pens.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s gravestone, meanwhile, is a refrigerator-sized hunk of beautiful raw granite. Attached is a copper plaque, long ago having turned a handsome green patina, decorated with four flowers on top and below reading: Ralph Waldo Emerson / Born in Boston May 25 1803 / Died in Concord April 27 1882.

Lastly, the plaque quotes this line from his poem “The Problem” –

“The passive Master lent his hand / To the vast soul that o’er him planned.”

The problem of where to place pens and pencils to honor the word master Emerson has been solved by admirers who have wedged pennies and dimes between the plaque and granite, some of the coins at 90-degree angles to form mini-shelves. So it was I balanced the pen originally intended for Thoreau’s marker.

Leaving “Authors Ridge”, breathtaking in both its beauty and literary hallowedness, this line from Thoreau came fittingly to mind: “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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