Humbug: Late Holiday Scribblings

The nip better be uncut, dawg-ass

I am reading Two Years Before The Mast and enjoying it immensely. R. H. Dana had a great talent for taking notes, noting detail, and detailing events that really brings early California alive for me. I am somewhat obsessed with the early history of my edge of the world. I wouldn't want to live in it -- I enjoy my modern comforts -- but it was, at least to me, a place and time unique in history, relatively unmined in my opinion for historical fiction, and with which I have numerous personal connections.

I was interested to see him use the word soger. I encountered that word in other readings of early California, diaries mostly, where the writer used the word to indicate shirking or lack of industry. I wondered what it really meant, where it came from, how to pronounce it. I did not use any handy internet dictionaries, however, until Dana used it. Turns out to be a sailor's variant of soldier, and refers to someone who, like a soldier on a ship, is fairly useless.

When some guy from New York who traveled across the Plains to reach California in 1849 uses it to refer to some campmate who doesn't work hard enough, I have to suspect he got the word not so much from a sailor who happened to cross his path in the desert, but more likely from reading the same book I am reading. I expect the book was very popular with the early pioneers, as they could garner from it large amounts of fairly useless information about the place they were headed for.

Dana also has comments on the cultural and political nature of California in 1835, halfway through its brief time as a state of Mexico. Not a pretty picture. One can easily see why Yankees looked upon the place as needful of Yankee energy and discipline -- that is, if you look beyond Dana's sometimes humorous view on it, which is not always kind to his countrymen.

Taking this popular book as a data point in time, the view that gaining the western half of the continent was a major component of America's manifest destiny is not hard to understand. Not for me anyway; but bear in mind, as a child of Berkeley and its relentless revisions of history, I digested and eliminated the so-called "alternate" views early in my scholarly life. I actually don't think America has much to apologize for when it comes to appropriating Mexican territory after the 1848 war. The war itself, yes: I agree with Grant and Lincoln and others that it was a vast act of bullying. It was put forward in large measure by Southern interests who wished to extend their twisted vision of "freedom" into the Latin countries. But once done, the occupation was pretty gentle in its original conception. It really only went bad for the existing inhabitants because of greed amongst the squatters and corruption in the courts, driven, of course, by the Gold Rush. That apart, there is no doubt that the American system was vastly superior in its service to the common man than Mexico's. Still is. So quit feeling bad.

Anyway, my interest in old words is why I wrote "Humbug" at the top of this thing. It's Christmastime, and I am sympathetic with Scrooge.

But not very. I went shopping today. Had a very good time, due of course to the company I kept; but I also get filled to overflowing with love and joy for my young'uns when I buy them stuff. I love to give; I just don't like the frenetic atmosphere that dominates this potentially nice time of year. Thankfully, it's almost over.

End Of The World Day was interesting in that as I drove up the freeway to work, there was a loud bang somewhere in my car, a really loud bang ... but no change in performance, no flat tires (that happened on my birthday last August), no smoke ... Just a truck driver with his fist out the window as I saw him retreat in my rear view mirror. And I only remembered that later, when I got out at work and found my sunroof had shattered.

I think he saw me texting while driving, got mad, and dropped his coffee cup on me.

Well, I meant to call Triple A, but I forgot about it until three o'clock the next morning when I was driving along the same freeway and there was a sudden whoosh accompanied by some instability and the clatter of fragments skittering away across the exterior of the car. My companion jumped and screamed, but I was still in control, so then I remembered the broken sunroof, and realized fingers of wind had reached in and pulled it apart. Sure enough, when we parked, it had a big hole, otherwise undetected because I had the interior slider shut. Good thing. Good thing it wasn't raining, too.

It did rain the next day, but I won't bore you with the details. It's taken care of.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I have many memories of it as an especially special day. This year is different. The Eve will still be special actually, if not the old usual -- I'll spend much of it with my mother. She lives near me now and we are going to meet my cousin (her niece) for lunch as she passes through from Japan to Arizona, go replace her printer, and then at some point attend an Episcopalian Xmas Eve service. She raised me Episcopalian, so it will be a comforting experience, potentially, all the usual annoyances of ritual and hypocrisy aside. It'll be a reasonable day. I'm more interested, as a matter of unusual interest, in Christmas itself.

I have no plans for Christmas Day. That's a first.

One of my sons will be off in the Midwest, is why, and we are deferring our family Christmas until the weekend. Meanwhile, maybe I'll take my other son to see The Hobbit or something. Maybe we'll pretend we're Jewish and go out for Chinese. Or maybe he'll be busy and I'll have to, you know, call a friend. Work a soup kitchen. Go find a bar full of Xmas orphans. Ooh, wait, that sounds really fun, actually.

Well, Happy Humbug, then. But not really. I don't mind Christmas once it's upon us, and I hope it is Merry for you and you and you, and an acceptable day otherwise. It will be merry enough for me, even if I do wake up in an empty apartment and spend much of the day by myself, unwilling to impose, and nowhere else to go. Somehow, the innumerable happy memories I have of Christmases past feel as though they will be good enough, and I will find a place to go if I really need one.