Watching a Game

I was watching the BYU Volleyball game last night. Tracy was doing her normal task of being interrupted every 30 seconds by the children...but I digress. (Discussion shortened and altered to make me look wonderful.)


Me: Sarah was the libero during the South Elgin game today. I wonder if she will play in college. I think she's really good.
....
Me: Oh, when I went to IT Monday with the kids, one of the scenes was dated "October 1988" and I told them that I was dating you during that time.

Tracy: Yeah. That was an interesting time. Did you tell them that a month later....

Me: Ok, ok. I'm a little bit uncomfortable by how fast that all happened there. With age, I would have done things a lot differently.

Tracy: Hmmmm. Maybe. Still it was quite a time. <pause> And you were so irritating.

Me: Irritating? I know I'm irritating now a differently than I was then, but is it fair that that is what you bring up first?

Tracy: But it wasn't bad. It was just different. My first boyfriend told me how beautiful and wonderful I was. Then he became abusive. I got out of that. The next one was simpering. He would have done anything for me. Then one guy kind of ignored me. You didn't do any of those things. You asked me before you held my hand and before you kissed me. I'd never had that happen. You treated me differently. You invited me into your life, you didn't demand mine.

Me: Radical consent. But I also stopped asking you out. You didn't seem interested in me at all and I wasn't going to waste my time with trying to convince you anymore.

Tracy: Yeah, but we worked that out. You don't understand how it was like dating. There was a building 9 stories tall filled with girls crying because they weren't going on a date that week. It wasn't just dating. We had to find our "Eternal Companion". It wasn't marriage, it was ETERNITY...not getting into heaven unless you snagged a man. The pressure was horrible.

Me: Yeah, and thank you for putting that into context. It explained a lot of what I was seeing from these women.

Tracy: But for you, it was all earning potential. You had lots of earning potential.

Me: Ha! That worked out well for you, didn't it?

Voree, Wisconsin

OK. It is going to be a warm day. Take a day off. Go somewhere. The question is, where?

I have known about Voree for some time because of my interest in history. There was a man, James Strang, who contested for the highest position in the LDS Church after the death of Joseph Smith. He did a good job, pulling in almost everyone. Well, I decided that I wanted to see the place. I knew that James Strang helped provide the lumber for the Nauvoo Temple along the Black River on the west side of Wisconsin. I assumed that Voree was along there. Nope. For once, I zoomed out of the close up map and, wait, it is almost directly north of where I live. That's only 60 miles from my house. Oh yeah, I'm goin'!

Nothing much of note on the way up. I was struck that there wasn't any sign at all when I passed into Wisconsin. Only a signpost telling me I was now on County Road P indicated that I had traversed the cheddar curtain. I knew the way up from all my map-staring that I did. I didn't realize that it was all the same county road as it made turns all over. Wisconsin roads are like that.

I entered Burlington and was met with this church. I had to double back to get a parking spot so I could take a few pictures.

I thought the steeple was beautiful and it was so tall. There were a few other side buildings and another chapel that appeared much older to the side.The cornerstone read 1856. That was a few years after the time I was interested in. By then it probably wasn't known as Voree. Come to think of it, maybe it never was officially named that. The mormons outside of town called it Voree though.

The only other thing of any interest is the lady that owned the car that was parked in front of me said her farewells to the priest she was talking to and stared me down while I was getting my gear back on.
"Were you looking for anyone in particular?"
"No, I just saw the church and I wanted to take a few pictures." And she was probably nervous because of this biker walking around when there is a school right there.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?" she retorically answered.
"Yes it is." and I got on my bike and we parted ways.

I wanted to see the "lake" in town as well as see the historical marker that I knew was in the nearby park. I found the park easily enough and the marker had rotted off its stand and someone had set it up resting on the posts instead.

MORMONS IN EARLY WISCONSIN

Among those contributing to the nation’s westward expansion in the nineteenth century and to Wisconsin’s early development were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). In 1835, Moses Smith helped establish Burlington and in 1837 organized Wisconsin’s first Mormon congregation. His cabin stood across the river from here. Mormons helped develop communities in southwest and western Wisconsin (Jenkynsville in 1837, Blanchardville in 1842, and near La Crosse in 1844-1845), where they mined lead ore and farmed, and at sites along the Black River (1841-1844), where they harvested pine and floated it down the Mississippi River to build the Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois. Oliver Cowdery, second only to Joseph Smith in the church’s early history, was a lawyer and newspaper editor in Elkhorn. After Smith’s 1844 murder in Illinois, Wisconsin Mormons either joined the migration to Utah or formed separatist churches here. Few remained after 1850; then by 1875 Mormons re-established a growing presence in Wisconsin.

 I also had a run in with one of my favorite kind of birds. I've never been closer to one than this time but he quickly flew off to the opposite bank and glared at me for my intrusion.

I then went and found a local McD's and had some lunch. It only took me 90 minutes to get up here, but it was lunchtime. Afterwards, I went on the 2or 3 mile ride to Voree to see the relics of what once was a community of like-minded people.

The above house is from the period and was the house where James Strang's mother lived. It is on the west side of the White River.

One of the monuments I wanted to see was one built of slabs taken from the quarry with a bronze plaque on it that showed the layout of the town. I couldn't find reference to where it was until I happened upon a page that gave the description of where it was. It is just on the East side of the river with no other indication that it is there from the road.

From this I found that the temple he wanted to build was actually located on the west side of the river. Well, that never happened. I think they got around to the first story before they moved on to Beaver Island in Michigan. Strang was shot there and moved back to Voree where he died a few years later, I believe.

On Mormon Road, the last meeting house of the group is located amidst a farmer's field. I can't find much evidence that it has been used recently. There used to be a website, strangite.org, that held a lot of information about the group, and the owner of the site was quite involved in the history of the time. He started a petition to stop the building of the Nauvoo Temple at one time and I knew he also collected documents of the time. Anyway, here is the chapel.

The outbuilding was empty and the door broken. The chapel had missing tiles and little else of interest. the marker is below.

MEMORIAL

 To Wingfield Watson, 1828-1922, Loyal disciple of James J. Strang and the teachings of Jesus Christ, our Lord. He was a wise counselor, parent, and stelwart leader of the saints after being dispossessed by a mob and scattered. He helped them battle dispondency, poverty, preasures from outside and disunity from within the church. Unfaltering, he used his sublime faith, knowledge and experience, the scriptures, cogent reasoning, debate, pamphlets, rinted contributions and wrote thousands of letters. Every possession beyond bare necessities was used to forward the Lord's work. His efforts gained the respect and admiration of all. He continued until he was past ninety-four years of age, leaving a record surely worthy of the emulation of all. Erected A.Dl 1984 Wingfield Watson Trust.

The trust mentioned bought and protected properties significant to the church, including the chapel, the area where the Voree Plates were found, the house Strang died in and a cemetery. The latter two located just down the road.

I couldn't gain access to where the plates were reportedly found but I did find an aerial shot of where it is. There supposedly is another plaque concerning that on the spot but it was behind fences to keep people like me out.

The only other item that I can add is that the slight hill in the picture below was where the temple was to be built. It was a protected area and I didn't want to try and find a way to it. I wanted to get back home before too long as I had plans that evening.

Anyway, there be my trip.

Interesting Links

Reddit post about the area.

Historical Marker

Voree Plates

Property owned by the church. "Mormon House"

Voree Temple

The Dollop. Irreverent History

Infants on Thrones, Hamer on Strang

Limits

This has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with relationships. Not sure what picture could be used for that. I'm partial to this image, so you'll have to live with it.

I've been watching Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath on A and E and I watched episode 4 last night. It had to do with people that were fairly up in the operational hierarchy of the church and then something made them question. Not just question, but it passed some threshold, some limit in their own rationalizations that their minds just couldn't cross. It wasn't that the thing was that large, but it was "the last straw" or in LDS circles, "their shelf breaks." For one gentleman, it was seeing a particular man's (ex)wife, the man that was in the room during the interview, say that her husband was never physically assaulted by the leader of Scientology. He was there. He knew what had happened. He vividly remembers the sound of the punches hitting the man. He couldn't deal with that lie. Yes, it was just one of many, but it was a lie that tipped the scales. He mentioned over and over how many things he rationalized away because L. Ron Hubbard (LRH) put this man in charge before he died and LRH wouldn't have done that if he was a bad person. He just couldn't rationalize ruining anyone's life anymore.

Another man was in charge of security at one of the compounds. He put in security systems that were meant to imprison people rather than keep riff-raff out of the compound. His limit was when he convinced his wife to have an abortion because members of his order weren't allowed to have children. It ate away at him, and eventually cost him his marriage and job. Leah had to comfort him in that he was just doing what he had been told was right, that it was what a good person does. He was conned into this way of thinking.

I had my limits too. I had to research my faith for several years, and I know which limits I struck. It also tested limits in my marriage. Tracy stayed with me during my painful realizations that the relationship I had with my own religion wasn't a healthy one. She reached her limits too, once she re-evaluated her own premises. Luckily, the stretched limits in our marriage didn't break but we did need to do a lot of talking and get into synch again.

I've known many relationships that I've been a bystander to also find their limits. Many of them broke. Some of them didn't. Ultimately, it is the people involved who have to know what those limits, those boundaries, are. Some relationships aren't healthy. Some might be okay, but not to the standards of one or both of the participants any longer. I've always tried not to judge the relationships of others, to varying degrees of success. Life happens. Sometimes it happens in big heaping bucketfuls.

That's all. No profound thoughts, just observations.

To Eclipse and Back, Part 2

At 12, I grabbed my towel to sit on, my hat, my glasses, a bottle of water and I trudged up the hill. Totality would hit at 1:20 but it would start at 11:56. Nothing really interesting would happen, I figured, until around 50%. The hill was a bit steeper than I expected but no biggie. Once I got there, I found that there was still some shade under an apple tree. So there I sat, peering through the leaves occasionally as the moon slid over the face of the sun.

After I was up there around 20 minutes, a truck pulled up and the driver came out and asked, "Since you are here all alone, can I assume that you own this place?"
"Nope, just wanted to get away from everyone down the hill. Plus I want to see the shadow and I need to be high up to see the horizon."
"Well, care for some company?"
"Sure."

So there we sat. I was more comfortable in the shade but he seemed to want to be in the sun, looking through his 4 or 5 filters to see the sun. I made a call to Tracy to let her know I was positioned and to see how things were going on up north. As the time passed and totality drew near, I attempted to talk to Tracy and climb up the steep embankment on the south side of the road, to get the best view that I could. In the meantime, another person had joined us and was chatting both of us up pretty well. It was established that these two were from Texas, and then talked Texas to each other. I had no interest in conversation with them at this point, I just wanted to experience the eclipse. When I only had a few minutes left, I said goodbye to Tracy and messed with my phone, a new Samsung s8, to capture the shadow along the horizon. I was pretty sure the camera wouldn't be able to capture the sun very well. It wasn't made for that kind of thing.

I captured what I have on video. I hate my voice. Still, I absolutely wasn't expecting to see what the title photo above shows. I was expecting seeing a light ring, but I wasn't prepared to see the corona like that. It was captivating. All I could think of is what people millennia ago would have thought, to see the sun like that. It was awe inspiring to say the least. And the shadow. You could see its edges all around. While I didn't get a real horizon shot, the clouds presented a good reference for where the shadow struck.

At one point of the eclipse, at the end of totality, I saw Baily's Beads. That was a fitting end for me; to see the mountains of the moon, or at least their valleys. The the diamond appeared. We get the idea that the sun has this nice yellow light but the diamond gave me a shot of brilliant, stark white light. I made the comment that it "was so harsh" and it was, compared to being in shadow. I stopped the video and just looked around at the light building once again on the countryside. There was a book that I read when I was a child about farming on the moons of Jupiter. One of the characters asked the protagonist at one point about why there was so much light so far from the sun. The reply was that the eye only needs about 5% of the light on earth to see quite fine, and I think that is what I was experiencing. It wasn't long at all before I could see just fine.

BTW, yes, the birds went quiet. Anyone who has lived in the country knows that crickets are always making racket but the absense of other critters makes them more pronounced.

My Eclipse Video

I called Tracy and excitedly told her what I had just experienced.  I stumbled down the embankment and talked about my trip down the hill. "I don't know how I'm going to get my pants on."
"Your pants? Were you doing some naked eclipse dance or something?"
"No. I just changed into my shorts in the open when I arrived but now there are hundreds of people down there. I guess I could change in the restroom."

And now, the fun begins.....

To be continued.