A Man and His Horse

Recently I read to Pager a story about Morgan horses from this book. I mentioned to Pager that he must have had some horses on the farm that had Morgan blood in them, and he said yes. I asked if he remembered any of their names, and he said no. But after a few minutes he said that he remembered a horse named Beauty that he'd had as a young man. I said that was a nice name. He said she was a nice horse.

And then he said something that surprised me: "There's something between a man and a horse that you can't put into words."

I was surprised because I'd never heard Pager be this sentimental about a horse before. And I was also surprised because one doesn't hear this much any more. Maybe about a woman and a horse, but not so much about a man and a horse. (At least not in the east.) In my previous post I wrote about changes during Pager's lifetime. But here's one I missed—the use of horses has changed from almost exclusively by men to almost exclusively by women. I don't know why that should be, but it just is.

It turns out that Pager has a photo album about Beauty. Here's the first page (click on photos to enlarge):

The writing says: "Boots, born September 1936, purchased April 2, 1937, from C.J. Munn, Johnson, Vermont, priced at $65, named Beauty, nicknamed Boots while being used with Black Beauty." Black Beauty was another horse on the farm; the album has a photo of the two horses working together "haying at Gomo's."

Here is a photo of Pager holding Boots in front of the farmhouse in 1937 soon after she was purchased:

On the porch are Pager's parents, Mabell (normally spelled Mabelle?) and Kinsley, Pager's sister Elizabeth (mostly hidden), and a boarder named Edson Cook. Pager was 22 or 23 at the time.

The album has many pictures of Boots being trained or ridden, and of Boots pulling something such as a sleigh or a gathering tub of sap. But most of the photos are of Boots with young women. Boots was a chick magnet! There are six different single young women in the pictures, not counting Pager's sister Elizabeth. Here is a photo of Mother's sister, Evelyn Gould, in 1942:

And here are several photos of Mother (Lois Gould), probably about the same time:

Pager called her Pat (and she called him Put). The caption says: "Boots and Pat, let it go at that." Put and Pat were married on June 16, 1946.

Changes in Pager's Lifetime

I've been remiss about posting birthday celebrations. Pager's 95th birthday was on Tuesday, September 8, 2009. We celebrated at his house the day before, which was Labor Day.

I've been thinking about the changes that Pager has seen in his lifetime. (Pager is fond of noting that Europeans discovered this part of the world only 400 years ago, and he's been around for almost a quarter of that time.) The photo below is four years old (11/6/05) but it shows Pager listening to Laura's iPod Nano. Now there's some change!

Modern electronics like the iPod Nano and computers (including blogs) would not be possible without quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics and relativity were the two major scientific developments of the 20th century. Both got started in the decade just before Pager was born, with major papers in both areas by Einstein in 1905.

What else was going on in the world when Pager was born on September 8, 1914? The Germans had just invaded Belgium and France the month before, starting World War I. But that didn't directly affect Pager. Let's consider how the world looked to Pager.

When Pager was a boy, the most advanced method of transportation available to him at home on the farm was a horse & buggy. If he rode in the buggy to Cambridge village, two miles away, he could board a steam train. No cars or tractors. Certainly no commercial airplanes. No radio or TV, and certainly no computers. No electricity! Artificial light was by candle or lantern. Pager's parents did have a telephone at the farm. In fact, they had to use the telephone on the day he was born. It was a difficult birth, and he might not have made it into the world if the telephone had not been available to call a doctor. Of course, the telephone technology was different from today. Not many people today remember the crank telephone.

Here are a few milestones in communications and transportation in the years before Pager was born:

- steam engines (first commercial steam railroad 1830)
- telegraph (1844)
- telephone (1876)
- internal combustion engines (1876)
- radio (1902)
- propeller airplanes (Wright Brothers—1903)
- automobiles (first widely available car—Model T—1908)

Other major developments, that we now take for granted, did not come until later—in the 1930s. The first major television broadcast was the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Jet airplanes were first flown by the Germans in 1939. In 1936 the British mathematician Alan Turing proposed his concept of universal computation, the so-called Turing machine, which eventually led to the computer that we know today.

The first car at the Putnam farm, a Model T, came in 1921, when Pager was 6 or 7. Electricity did not come to the farm until 1941, when Pager was 26 or 27. The first tractor on the farm was in 1943—a "Doodle Bug," really an old Model A truck that had been modified for field work. Until that time, all field work was done with horses. Pager was the one who introduced tractors to the farm. No doubt his father couldn't understand why horses weren't perfectly adequate.

If I make a list of the biggest changes that Pager has seen, I come up with the following: cars; tractors; electricity; modern telephone; radio; TV; computers; the Internet; jet airplanes; putting a man on the Moon in 1969; space probes to all of the planets; 15 million dead in World War I—at the time the worst war the world had ever seen, but soon to be eclipsed by 50 million dead in World War II; 25-50 million dead in the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919; the right to vote for women in 1920; the atomic bomb; nuclear energy; refrigeration; antibiotics; biotechnology; the rise of the carbon-based economy (soon to fall?); the rise and fall of communism (another 25-50 million dead).

Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments on what you think are the biggest changes that Pager has seen in his lifetime.

UPDATE 11/27/09: Here's something I forgot to mention—Vermont is much more wooded now than it was when Pager was born. In 1910, Vermont was 70% cropland and pastureland. In 2002 it was only 11% cropland and pastureland, with most of the rest being woods (some is cities, villages and roads). Source: Census of Agriculture. I wrote about this for work here and here (first comment).

George's 2nd Birthday

While looking through Pager's photo albums recently, I found this picture of me on my 2nd birthday:

Also in the photo is Pager (he was "Daddy" then, simply "Dad" later), Grandpa (J. Kinsley Putnam) and Beth. My guess is that what everyone is smiling at is Pager wiggling his ears. Pager had a way of wiggling his ears without moving any other muscles that fascinated us kids.

A few days ago I showed this picture to Pager and explained what I thought was going on. I asked him if he could still wiggle his ears. Instantly, he did! He still can wiggle his ears in a way that I've never seen anyone else do.

At the time of this picture (1957), Pager was 42, Grandpa was 83 and Beth was 9 almost 10. The photo was taken in the kitchen at the farmhouse. Note the blackboard on the wall behind the table. It was used extensively to write notes to family members.

Quebec City - Churches

Quebec City has many churches. We toured two. Notre-Dame de Quebec Cathedral has been located on this site since 1647:


The smaller Notre-Dame-des-Victoires dates back to 1687:


Quebec City is divided into an Upper Town (most of the city) and a Lower Town (next to the river). Notre-Dame de Quebec Cathedral is located in Upper Town, while Notre-Dame-des-Victoires is located in Lower Town.

Quebec City - Statues

Quebec City is full of statues. Here is a bust of Louis XIV:

In the photo above, the church at the left is Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, which was built during his reign. (See this post for more pictures of churches.)

Of course there is a statue of Samuel de Champlain:

The statue of Champlain is in Dufferin Terrace, in front of the Chateau Frontenac. The angle on the above photo is not very good, but it was the only angle that captured the English inscription on the base. Click here for a better angle.

There were also many statues outside of the walled city. All of the statues below are located outside Old Quebec.

The facade of the Parliament Building for the Province of Quebec has many statues (all of the dark spots):

Directly over the main entrance to the Parliament Building, in the center, are statues of Wolfe and Montcalm (close-up).

Below is a statue of Montcalm in front of Loews Hotel le Concorde. Montcalm was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and died the next day. The statue shows him standing, sword in hand, but with an angel hovering over his shoulder:

Nearby in a park named for her is a statue of Joan of Arc:

Most of the statues in the city were of historical figures, but not all. Just outside our hotel was a statue of the Muses.

Quebec City - Fortifications

Old Quebec is a walled city. It is the only such city in the U.S. or Canada with its fortifications still intact. Our hotel in Place D'Youville was just outside one of the three gates through the wall:

[In the photo above, note the ice skating rink at the left. The pile of snow in front of the gate is from the Zamboni that maintained the skating rink, not from the weather.]

The highest point of land in the city is occupied by the Citadelle, a fort within a fortified city. Construction of the Citadelle was started by the French in the late 1600s but most of the current fort was built by the British in the 1820s to protect against attack from the Americans (which never came). The Citadelle is still an active Canadian military installation, home to the Royal 22e Regiment. Flags at the Citadelle were flying at half-mast because of the recent death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.

The Citadelle is not imposing from the outside. It does not rise much above the land. Below is the entrance, which is itself reached only by a circuitous route and therefore not visible until you are upon it:

The only way to get inside the Citadelle is on a guided tour (highly recommended). Below is the view from inside the Citadelle at the height of land. Note the Chateau Frontenac in the distance at the right.

The view below is from the same spot (note the Chateau Frontenac again). The general direction of this view is downriver, but of course the English were concerned about possible attacks from either direction. The cannon at the right is pointed upriver, in the general direction of the refinery noted earlier, and when operational it was capable of firing twice as far as that refinery.

Just outside the Citadelle, and therefore also just outside the walls of Old Quebec, is a high plateau known as the Plains of Abraham. Here there are additional fortifications, including this Martello Tower:

The open fields which constitute the "plains" are just to the right of the above photo. Today they are part of the popular Battlefields Park. A pivotal battle was fought here in 1759 during what we call the French and Indian War. Canadian history can be divided into three periods: the French period, the English period, and the Canadian period. The French period ended in the 20 minute Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

Briefly, the British General James Wolfe (only 32 years old) was sent down the St. Lawrence River in May 1759 with about 8,000 men and 50 ships and with orders to take Quebec City. After nearly four months of bombardment and several skirmishes, he had damaged the city but not taken it. In September he hit upon a plan for a small force to climb the cliffs to the Plains of Abraham during the night. The French were not expecting an attack from this direction, and they were defeated. Both Wolfe and the commanding French General, Louis Joseph de Montcalm, were killed, but the British held the field.

Quebec City - Halloween

We were in Quebec City for Halloween, and there were signs of it everywhere...from City Hall:

... to the Joan of Arc Garden in the Battlefields Park on the Plains of Abraham (note the sign):

...to the public restrooms (note the sign):

We had dinner Halloween night at Panache (highly recommended). No Halloween celebrations there, but walking back to our hotel after dinner we saw two guided "Ghost Tours" walking around the city.

Quebec City

Nancy and I went to Quebec City over Halloween weekend. Nancy had been before, years ago, but I had not. (It's my third year in a row taking a foreign trip in the fall!)

Quebec is an old city, having been founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain. They celebrated their quadricentennial a year ago. After spending the winter of 1608-09 in Quebec, Champlain discovered Lake Champlain in 1609 (the same year Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River). The Lake Champlain region celebrated its quadricentennial this year.

Champlain chose the site for the city because it made a good place to defend the interior from attack by sea. Quebec means "where the river narrows." Any military force sailing up the river had to pass close to the city. And the city is located high on a bluff above the river, which gives it a commanding presence over the river and also makes it difficult to attack the city itself. This view looking upriver gives you an idea of the location's command over the St. Lawrence River:

The photo above shows the upper end of the Promenade des Gouverneurs, a delightful walkway. Note the refinery across the river at the left. I'll refer to this in a later post.

We spent most of our time in "Old Quebec," which is now mostly hotels, restaurants, shops, churches and museums. Here is one of the touristy areas (du Petit-Champlain):

The skyline of Quebec City is dominated by the Chateau Frontenac, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway starting in 1893:

Here is another view of the Chateau Frontenac, from the lower end of the Promenade des Gouverneurs mentioned above:

We did not stay at the Chateau Frontenac, but we did take a tour of the hotel. That was one of the highlights of the trip. Behind me in the photo is the lower end of the famous toboggan run on the Dufferin Terrace. Check out this video (not mine).

Visitors from far away and long ago

Margaret and Robbi Porter visited us in early October:

We last saw Margaret in Christchurch, New Zealand last November. And we last saw Robbi, now living in upstate New York, at a Gould sister family reunion at Sand Bar State Park in 1987!

As you can tell from the t-shirts in the photo above ("I survived the Flavor Graveyard"), they visited Ben & Jerry's. They also explored a good deal of Jeffersonville and Smugglers Notch. The covered bridge on the Canyon Road:

And the height of land on VT-108 through Smugglers Notch:

Even though it was just the beginning of foliage season, we had snow on the mountain tops on the day that Margaret and Robbi arrived—October 1st. Seems early for snow. Madonna Mountain on October 2nd:

Margaret and Robbi, we hope you return soon!

Emily Hikes the Long Trail

Emily hiked the Long Trail this summer, becoming the third member of the family to do so. Laura hiked it in 2006, and I hiked it with the Boy Scouts 1997-2001.

Emily and her friend Heather started at the Vermont-Massachusetts border on August 1st:

The first resupply stop, four days later, at VT-11/30 near Manchester:

Emily and Heather hiked through to Camels Hump and then came off the trail so that Emily could attend a wedding among other things. Emily hiked the LT from Camels Hump to the Canadian border in a series of day hikes and short backpacking trips, not necessarily in order (but always northbound). The last section was actually back at Camels Hump. Emily was joined on this hike by her friends Allie and Alex from Middlebury, Brian, Nancy and me. On top of Camels Hump on September 12th:


At the clearing just north of the summit, we celebrated with champagne! Brian left us there and returned to Boston.

The end of the hike, done at last:

Congratulations, Emily!

Jen & Andrew's Wedding

Jen and Andrew were married on August 22nd. The bride came in with one man...

and went out with another...

It was a wonderful wedding, and everyone had a great time. The best man delivered a memorable toast (including a reference to Jen's winning a teen-age beauty pageant), and the newly married couple did a spectacular tango for their first dance. They didn't tell anyone that they had been taking dance lessons! I have a video of part of that dance, but alas it's a rather large file, about 100x the size of a photo, so I won't put it on the blog. Jen and Andrew, nice job with the dance, congratulations on a wonderful wedding, and best wishes for the future!

Weddings provide a great opportunity to take family photos. The mother of the bride and her brothers:

The father of the bride and his brother:

And this is probably the only photo in existence of our family all dressed up at the same time!

Catching Up

I have been remiss in posting to the blog. You must think we haven't done anything since the Elton John and Billy Joel concert last July! I will do some catching up today.

Some readers of this blog may be interested in a series of posts that I published on my work blog in September about the mathematics of risk and last year's financial crisis:

What went wrong?
Risk models - some math
Risk models - more information

Mathematics and computers are wonderful, but one of the lessons of the financial crisis of 2008 is that we should be cautious about relying on mathematical or computer models that claim to predict how complex systems will behave. One might think the financial world would have learned that lesson after the fiasco of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, but apparently not. LTCM employed "brilliant mathematicans" and had two recent winners of the Nobel Prize in economics on its board of directors. Yet it lost $4.6 billion in less than four months and required a bailout engineered by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to prevent wider damage to the financial system. What went wrong? The world behaved in ways that their computer models did not predict.

Is there a lesson here for current discussions about climate change?