Coffins and witches

Dick and Rose Coffin were in an excellent place to celebrate Halloween – the Witch City, Salem, Mass., where they stayed at the Salem Waterfront Hotel. James Turgeon of Westbrook accompanied them, and Dick’s niece, Susie Coffin, of Bradford, Mass., joined them. There was a parade, on Derby and Essex streets, many costumes and several bands. Rose mentioned the Kamalou Band, with the lead singer dressed as Uncle Sam. She also mentioned the Britannica Band. The final number played was the Beatles song, “Get Back.”

The Salem police expected about 100,000 attending, but this year’s total was 150,000. That surely required extra police help.

They all had a big and exciting Halloween celebration to recall.

Campus wheels

The Oct. 20 New York Times picked up the story about how the University of New England in Biddeford is giving free bicycles to freshmen who promise to leave their cars at home. This is meant to ease the critical shortage of parking on campus.

Trek mountain bikes, helmets and locks were bought, and about 180 freshmen signed up. The college committed $50,000 to the program, and plans to continue it with next year’s freshmen.

School officials wonder what will happen when snow starts falling, but they are looking toward bike-sharing programs in cities like Copenhagen and Montreal as proof that they can work in the cold.

The bikes are marked with each student’s name.

It sounds like a great idea. I’m sure we’ll read more about it in our Maine papers now.

Her hymn

Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, was born in New York City. Her father was a wealthy banker, but she rejected a life of personal leisure. She married Dr. Samuel Howe in 1843, in Boston, Mass., where he was a reformer and teacher of the blind. A recent article in Investor’s Business Daily tells us that he did not approve of her passion for women’s suffrage, her writing and overall activism.

After his death in 1876, she became busy in lecturing and writing. She and her husband had shared a hatred of slavery. In Boston they edited an anti-slavery newspaper, the Commonwealth, and were part of William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery group. The Civil War and her abolitionist fire led to what she’s best known for, writing the words to “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

The readers have probably sung it. The first verse:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored:

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.”

The article said that in the first year of the Civil War, on Nov. 18, 1861, Howe awoke in the middle of the night and composed a poem she called “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

A friend had challenged her to write more appropriate words to the stirring tune of “John Brown’s Body,” a marching song sung by the troops.

Soon, Northern troops were singing it as they prepared for battle. Soldiers said it gave them optimism.

Soldiers sang it after getting word of their triumph at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

Winston Churchill requested that it be played at his funeral in 1965 to honor his American mother. “Battle Hymn” was also played at the funerals of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and President Reagan in 2004, and at Washington Cathedral after 9/11.

A decade after writing the hymn, Howe called for the creation Mother’s Day. A mother of six, she was motivated by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. She figured that such a celebration would give women a voice denied them by male leaders, who were taking their sons to fight and die in wars.

I learned all this from the Investor’s Business Daily article.

Justice served

Today’s recipe is from “Cookin” Up Justice,” published by the Access to Justice Community, Washington, 1999. The booklet was sent to us by our son Daniel, when he was a law professor at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

CRAB AND SHRIMP CASSEROLE

2 cups cooked rice

1 cup tomato juice

1/4 cup of green pepper

1/2 cup of milk

1 small can of shrimp

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup of minced onion

1/4 cup of slivered almonds

1/2 pound cooked crab

Buttered bread crumbs

Combine all ingredients, except for bread crumbs. Spread mixture in baking dish and cover with bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

Ramblings