Before COVID, on Friday evenings I would meet with Roger Mosher at the End of the Line pub.
Today, rumour has it that the End of the Line Pub has been purchased by the Lunn’s Mill Beer Co. team. Perhaps, in the Fall, we can anticipate drinking local beers at the renovated End of the Line pub in Bridgetown. Hopefully, we will still be able to drink a beer at Lunn’s Mill.
On Friday, Roger hosted a gathering at his house in Centrelea. He gave us a tour of his ‘forest garden’. Bill Crossman arrived with two boxes of books that he had read in recent years.
Heather picked out:
Jared Diamond’s Upheaval: Turning points for Nations in Crisis.
Roger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History.
Three books caught my attention.
Randall Fuller’s The Book that changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation.
J.B.MacKinnon’s The Once and Future World: nature as it was, as it is, as it could be.
Jonathan Manthorpe’s Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s campaign of influence and intimidation in Canada.
To date, I have just started Fuller’s book. It opens with a description of a New Years Eve dinner party in Concord, Massachusetts in 1860. Attendees are Sanborn, Brace, Alcott and Thoreau. The four men discuss Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’.
“The copy of ‘On the Origin of Species‘ that Brace brought with him, belonged to his cousin, Asa Gray’.
From Thoreau’s journal:
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise.’
“A man receives only what he is ready to receive………We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.” p.12.
It was a wonderful act of generosity for Bill to bring the two boxes to our gathering in Centrelea.
Postscript
From Emergence Magazine, a conversation with David Abram. The Ecology of Perception.
“Falling in love with the local earth is the deepest medicine”
This weekend, Heather and I managed to get away to Kejimkujik National Park for a canoe on the lake. Sunday, we challenged ourselves with a bicycle ride to Middleton and back. Finally, from my fitness session with Cathy at Healthy Bodies, I am practising the art of ‘walking backwards’ to strengthen my left hip joint.
Acknowledgements
Roger for his hospitality. Bill for access to the boxes of books. Heather for sharing the weekend activities. Edward for the graphics.
References
Randall Fuller, 2017. The Book that Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation. PenguinRandomHouse.
J.B. MacKinnon. 2014. The Once and Future World: nature as it was, as it is, as it could be. PenguinRandomHouse.
Jonathan Manthorpe, 2019. Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s campaign of influence and intimidation in Canada. Cormorant Books.
Jared Diamond, 2019. Upheaval: Turning points for Nations in Crisis. Little Brown & Company.
Rutger Bregman, 2019. Humankind: A Hopeful History. Little Brown & Company.
Ernest Blair Experiment 