I continued smoking Tijuana Smalls off and on, even when I wasn’t riding the bus.  I became involved in a Catholic youth organization, and would occasionally smoke one during our fellowship sessions.  That’s what I liked about that group.  They accepted me for who I was, and didn’t shun me for my sometimes outrageous behavior.  Once I sat next to Father Mike in the circle.  I was smoking a cigar, and eating red shoestring licorice.  I found out that the licorice was hollow, like a straw.  While he was expounding on some religious thought, I reached behind him, with one end of the licorice in my hand, and the other in my mouth.  Unknown to him (until everyone burst into laughter), I blew the smoke, and made it look like it was coming out of one of his ears.  When he realized what was happening, he laughed, too.

One day, when I went to him for confession, he said he wanted to talk to me about my cigar smoking.  “Uh oh,” I thought.  “Here it comes…” I thought I was going to be reprimanded for my unladylike behavior.  With fake concern on his face, he reached into his desk and pulled out a box of Garcia y Vega cigars.  “Have one of these,” he said, passing me a fat cigar.  He took one, too, and gave us both a light.  Leaning back in his leather chair, he said, “Now that’s a cigar.”  It turns out he was only concerned with the lack of quality in my choice of cigar.

Catholic University School of Library Science, graduating class of 1949

A few nights ago, I spent part of the evening sitting on the love seat with a book in my lap, a magnifying glass in one hand, and a black-and-white photograph in another.  The photograph, taken in 1949, is of my mother’s graduating library school class at Catholic University.  The book was Thomas P. McCarthy’s Guide to Catholic Sisterhoods in the United States, or as I like to call it, The Field Guide to the Identification of Nuns.  Having been published in 1958, it was perfect for the task I had set for myself: to identify every order of nun that appeared in the photograph, or fall asleep trying.  When I was done, I had fourteen different names of orders scribbled down, from the Sisters of St. Ann to the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart.

As I sat next to the couch where my husband was doing a Sudoku puzzle, I thought about how similar my activity was to his, except mine was more like those word find puzzles where you try to find the words hidden in what looks like a matrix of random letters.  But this was harder, because my puzzle didn’t tell me what nuns were there to be found; I had to take the visual clues I had in the photograph and match them up with what was in the book.

The task also resembled another of my pastimes, bird watching.  Nuns, in the era of my mother’s graduation (not to mention the early years I spent in Catholic elementary school), were at least as consistent in their habits (manner of dress) as birds are with their plumage.  If I could match the headdress, robes, and other accouterments from a nun in the photograph to one in the book, I had a certain identification.

Daughters of Charity, St. Catherine Laboure School, cira 1960

The arrangement of a field guide to birds is much more friendly to the bird watcher than this book was to a nun watcher.  Guides to birds are arranged by species, which means that birds that are similar in size, shape, and color are grouped together.  Not so with my field guide to nuns; it contains approximately 300 different orders of nuns and sisters arranged alphabetically, which has nothing to do with how they look.  Sometimes, I had to flip through the entire book two or three times to find,for example, the nun with the black veil with white lining, black robe with the white collar, and the silver cross around her neck (Sisters of the Precious Blood).

I was surprised that none of the nuns in Mom’s graduating class were of the same order that taught me for the first eight years of my education.  I would not have needed McCarthy’s book to identify one of them.  Even if I hadn’t known what the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul looked like, their habit is so distinctive that it would be hard to confuse it with any other.  As McCarthy put it, “…the white cornette and blue gown of the Sister of Charity is easily identified, even in a convention hall crowded with a thousand nuns of various orders.”

Catholic University School of Library Science, graduating class of 1949 (with annotations)

I spent about an hour this past Saturday morning updating a digital copy of the photograph, adding the name of the sisterhood and an arrow pointing to one of the nuns who belonged to it.  I don’t know why I felt compelled to create this image.  I guess it’s because nuns are part of my past, but I’ve never fully figured out why someone would want to be one.  Why would a person feel that in order to serve God, they had to separate themselves from the rest of the world physically and socially, if not withdraw completely from it.  I am aware that nuns have always worked in schools and hospitals and even libraries, but I never understood the need to dress like 17th century French peasant women.  But I feel drawn to these old nuns in a way that seems almost spooky to me.  They were the authority figures of my youth, and I never felt that I fully measured up to their expectations.  I might have stayed a Catholic if I felt that they (and the priests) were more human, and less idealized.  I would also have liked them to be more feminist in their theology, but that is just wishful thinking on my part.

Eastern Market's South Hall

Yesterday was the nicest day we have had in four weeks.  It’s hard to believe that it’s only been that long since we were buried under about two feet of snow, and about to get more.  There are still remnants of the largest piles of snow, but I suppose they won’t last long.  Spring is almost here.

With temperatures in the 50s and the sky mostly sunny, Eastern Market was buzzing in the morning.  We went to buy something for a tacky gift exchange we’ve been invited to later this month.  No luck there.  The flea market vendors have changed since I bought this little gem.  There used to be more sellers of vintage wares.

Felt slippers

Still, it was a nice day to take photos.  I saw a lot of vivid colors, which made up for dreary winter:  red bell peppers, yellow snapdragons, orange felt slippers, sparkly earrings.  Also catching my eye were  the brightly colored Girl Scout cookie boxes.  I bought two boxes of my new favorite, Lemon Chalet Creme.  Who would have thought that anything could have ended my love affair with Thin Mints?

I visited Country Funk, which sets up in the Hines Junior High School lot across from the Market.  I enjoy looking at their artistic creations made out of architectural salvage, mirrors, and coat hooks, and the interesting way they display them.

Rugelach

Our last stop was the Fine Sweet Shoppe, for some rugelach.  My favorite is the apricot; my husband’s is the chocolate.  So, we bought both.  He had to have a sweet potato bar as well.  We left Eastern Market with a bag full of sugary treats.  Sweet day at Eastern Market!

See all my Eastern Market photos in this Flickr set.  The most recent ones are at the end.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/sets/72157600163612071/

Julie and the Monkey

For my second anniversary, my husband Bob surprised me with an oil painting…a portrait of myself.

This painting is based on two photographs.  Mainly, it is based on a photo taken of me, by Bob in May 2005 at an old-time music party near Charlottesville.  The other photo that was used in the painting was taken by Lynda Folwick in her backyard in August 2007. It’s a much better head shot of me than the one in the original photo, and Bob had the good sense to combine the two in his composition.

In the photograph that Bob took, we have just arrived at the party, and I’m so happy to be there.  I’m smiling at him as he gets up from sharing a beer with me to take my picture.  That’s his beer and bottle cap in the foreground, together with mine.  The toy gorilla is named Moogie.  When he senses motion, he starts singing and dancing to “Great Balls of Fire.”  The irises in the vase came from my garden, and I brought them along to brighten up my camp site.

When I first saw the photo, I told Bob that if he ever painted a portrait of me, I would like it if it would be based on this photo.  I didn’t know until the day he presented it to me on our anniversary this year that he had any intention of honoring my request.

I love this painting because it captures the feelings of joy and exuberance I experience when I am at an old-time music festival.  I hope that whenever I look at it, it will remind me of how I feel when I’m at my happiest.  I also love this painting because it reminds me that I’m married to a talented artist who understands and accepts and loves me.

For the artist’s statement about the painting, please go to Bob’s website:  http://www.bobcantor.com/paintings/Gallery2/images/Julie.htm

Window display at Kay Wigs

The window display at Kay Wigs is narrow, but crammed full of mannequin heads wearing wigs.  And not always the kind of wigs you’d expect.  These are wigs in colors do not appear naturally on any human head: pink, lime green, navy blue; many of them teased out five times the normal width of a human head.  Sometimes they sport fancy church lady hats and costume jewelry that I personally would not be caught dead in.  It’s not the kind of thing you expect to see on the street on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Since I work nearby, I look forward to the periodic changes to the window display, and wonder about matters such as whether someone actually purchased the purple bouffant wig, or what church the blue satin pillbox with the excessive netting is now attending.  Kay Wigs doesn’t seem to fit along that strip of Pennsylvania Avenue, between a health food store and the Hawk and Dove, an archetypal Capitol Hill Bar.  But I like that it’s there, and it was only a matter of time before I went inside and bought a wig.  In June, I bought a purple wig to wear while I hosted the Tacky Treasures Road Show.  With Halloween approaching, another visit was inevitable.

Last Thursday, I stopped by the shop to see if it would be open on Saturday.  While I was there, I noticed an enormous blue cloud of hair floating on top of a disembodied head.  I wondered, “Who would buy a wig of such unthinkable proportions and hue?”  I had my suspicions, and on my return visit, they were confirmed.

A rainbow of page boys

I brought my friend Ellen to Kay Wigs on Saturday so we could shop for a little something to complement our Halloween costumes.  We descended the narrow, carpeted stairs into the tiny basement shop.  Half of the basement store is a showroom with wigs displayed on mannequin heads, shelved from floor to ceiling; the other half holds the counter and fitting area.  I saw a lot of wigs that were normal hair colors, but the overall look of the room was like a rainbow.  The display on the left as you enter the store was especially colorful.  It had even more unusual colors than the window: purple, orange, neon yellow.  There was a metallic green that reminded me of a car I used to drive in the 1970s.

Blue Beyoncé

I had hoped to see the giant blue wig again, but it was no longer in the showroom.  The most striking thing in the shop was a puffy aquamarine wig with hair draped all the way to the floor on mannequin head at the fitting counter.  The owner was in the process of styling it to a customer’s specifications, which later turned out to be a photograph of Beyoncé.  I asked if I could photograph the wig, and she agreed.  I extended that permission to taking photographs all around the shop.

Dolly and Beyoncé

Ellen hadn’t settled on what color wig she wanted to buy, so I let her go first.  She tried on a simple, blue-streaked page boy, which looked great on her.  Then she tried on a blue flip hairdo, which, with the right 1950s era dress, would evoke memories of Donna Reed (except for the blue hair).  Finally, she tried on a hot pink teased number that would have been perfect for a psychedelic Dolly Parton costume.  Ellen finally settled on the relatively tame blue page boy.

I was looking for a lime green wig, and the only one she had was the one in the window, which I had thought would be perfect until I tried it on.  It was a spiky style, and looked too much like a 1980s glitter rock musician’s do, and was longer in the back than I had realized.  Even though the owner said she’d cut the hair for me, I decided to keep looking.  I went back to the page boys (what a safe style; always in fashion) and eventually bought one in a lovely shade of [information embargoed until Halloween].

As the owner rung up our purchases, a man entered the store.  I knew immediately that the aquamarine wig was for him.  Maybe it was the way his eyes lit up when he saw it.  While he waited, he picked up a mannequin head with a purple bowl cut and admired it.  Fortunately, he didn’t seem in a hurry.  While I was signing the credit card slip for my purchase, the owner spoke to him, and then went into the back of the store and brought out the giant blue wig I had seen on Thursday.  I asked him if he had a stage name.  He smiled, and said, “Betty Blue Bubbles.”  Then the store owner asked him a question that almost blew our (Ellen’s and mine) minds.  She asked Betty, “Do you want me to bring out the really big one?”  Maybe Ellen and I should have stayed to see that one, too.  But our purchasing was done, and when I think about it now, the showroom was probably too small to hold us, the store owner, Betty Blue Bubbles, and three of her wigs.

The owner of the shop couldn’t have been nicer to us, and I plan to go to Kay Wigs for all my wig needs, whatever they may be.  If I ever need a wig because all my hair falls out, I might just go with the little purple bowl cut.

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/sets/72157622658039450/

Kay Wigs
325 Pennsylvania Avenue SE
Washington DC 20003
Google Map

Raising a monarch butterfly from an egg to a butterfly is an amazing process to observe.  It only takes a month to see all the stages: egg, larvae (caterpillar), chrysalis, and butterfly.  Here’s the full story of the experience Bob and I shared.  Some of it has been reported elsewhere, but I thought it would be nice to have it all in one place.  I hope this information is useful to anyone wishing to try it themselves.  If you want to skip to the visuals, here’s a short slide show that takes you throught the stages.  I wish I’d taken more photographs, but once the butterfly takes off, it’s gone, and you just have to wait until the next time.

We have a field down the street from our house that has stormwater containment ponds.  They are meant to handle the runoff from downtown Wheaton, which has so little green space any more that there’s nowhere for the water to go but into the creeks that meander through the neighborhoods.  In some places, the creek acts as a median strip in the side streets.  Erosion could threaten these streets when a heavy rain comes through and has nowhere to go but over the banks.  The stormwater ponds aren’t the best solution (that would have been to allow for a lot more green space within the town), but it gives the water above them a place to go, and controls the amount of flow into the creeks below them.  A side benefit to this environment is that it attracts a lot of wildlife to our neighborhood:  deer, geese, herons, beaver, foxes, and butterflies.  There are lots of trees around the edge, and wildflowers such as milkweed.

The county maintains the land where the ponds are located, and their primary concern is the integrity of the dams that hold the water in.  The biggest threat to the dams is woody vegetation growing on them that might break up the walls if allowed to get too big.  So, occasionally, they have to mow them.  Last month, when I saw that all the milkweed had been mowed down, I became concerned for the monarch butterflies.

Butterflies have an interesting relationship plants.  There are two purposes for plants in their life cycle.  As butterflies, they drink the nectar from just about any flowering plant.  But they only lay their eggs on certain plants, because the caterpillars that hatch out of them will only eat specific plants.  Black swallowtailed butterfly caterpillars favor parsley.  If you notice that something is chewing the heck out of your pansies, look around for the caterpillar of the variegated frittilary.  Monarch butterfly caterpillars only eat milkweed.

There are lots of varieties of milkweed: swamp milkweed, showy milkweed, butterfly weed.  Often, you can find these at nurseries that promote butterfly gardens.  But what they had at the pond, was common milkweed, and I was having a hard time finding at the usual sources.  So, I contacted the instructor for a class I took through the Audubon Naturalist Society a few years ago on the natural history of butterflies.  She has a greenhouse where she raises all sorts of butterfly friendly plants.  I drove out to her home on June 18 and bought several plants, including three common milkweed.

As soon as I got home, I planted them all.  The next day, while I was at work, Bob observed a monarch butterfly sit on one of the plants for a short time and then fly away.  When I got home, we searched the plant for eggs, and sure enough, there were tiny white orbs, about the size of a poppy seed, sitting on some of the leaves.  We took two of them inside and adopted them.

It wasn’t possible to tell the gender of the caterpillars that came out two days later, so we gave them the names Tex and Slim.  I knew that the next phase of their lives was to ride those milkweed leaves (and eat them) for the next couple of weeks, so I dubbed them The Milkweed Cowboys.  Yahoo!  Git along little larvae!

I kept the cowboys in a plastic box my brother gave me, that was left over from when his kids had hermit crabs.  It was an excellent way to watch their development, and also keep the cats away from them.  Occasionally, I took the caterpillars out to photograph their progress.

They started out so tiny, but they grew to their full size in just two weeks.  We had to keep them supplied with fresh milkweed leaves.  I didn’t want to use up all the leaves on my own plants.  I went back down to the pond to pick some of the milkweed leaves off the plants there.  The mowing hadn’t killed the plants, and they were sending up new tender shoots.  I picked leaves off of what I thought were small milkweed plants coming back up, but they were not.  They were in the same place, and the leaves had the same shape.  But the cowboys were not fooled, and they refused to eat them.  I told you they were particular!  I started giving them leaves from my garden, but I wasn’t happy about it.  After a few days, I went back to the pond, and the common milkweed had grown enough to be distinguishable from the false milkweed.  I brought back a lot of leaves, some of which I kept in the fridge for later.  It was a good thing that I had done that, too.  One morning I got up to find that the caterpillars had eaten the leaves all the way down to the stems, and had doubled in size.  If I hadn’t had a few leaves chilling, I would have had to get dressed and go to the pond and get more before I had to go to work.

Then, after two weeks of feeding them, I saw the caterpillars start climing to the top of the box, looking for a place to hang upside down.  The chrysalis stage was about to begin.  I had to go to work, and couldn’t photograph the process.  Bob emailed me with the play by play as the caterpillars morphed into chrysalises:

12:15 still a caterpillar
12:57 wow, now it’s a cocoon, although you can still kind of see where the legs are.
1:04 the legs are disappearing before my very eyes
1:23 looks like its done!

I only took one photograph of the chrysalises because to do that, I need to remove the lid from the box.  They were hanging from the underside of the lid, and if the chrysalises had become detached, it wasn’t likely that we would have butterflies at all.  However, I know that in the wild, the chrysalises have to survive wind and rain, and who know what else.  I figured if I was very careful, I would be able to get this one shot.  I made two piles of books and separated them just enough so that I could set the lid on them and the chrysalises would hang undisturbed for their photo opportunity.  The jade-like color with a line of tiny gold spots was a lovely sight to see.  I almost wanted to wear it like jewelry.

Nothing at all happened to the chrysalises until the evening of the 28th day since we found the eggs.  I saw that they were starting to darken, a sign that the next day would be the one when the butterflies emerged.  I had raised a couple of butterflies several years before, but at that time, I lived alone.  Everytime something big happened in their life cycle, I was out of the house.  This time, I saw a lot more with my own eyes.  And even when I didn’t, Bob did and his descriptions were fascinating.  This time, the emergence was going to happen on a Saturday morning when I had no plans, and the weather was lovely.  A perfect time for a butterfly release party!

By morning, the chrysalis had become so transparent that you could see the familiar orange and black pattern of the monarch’s wings.  When the time came to emerge, it only took a second for the butterfly to split the chrysalis, step out, and then hang from it.  When it first emerges, the wings look tiny and shrunken, and the body is big and fat.  Somehow, the fluid in the body is pumped out to the wings, and in a matter of about ten minutes, you have a normal-looking monarch butterfly.  The wings take about two hours to dry enough for flight.  You can tell that the butterfly is ready to be released when it stops hanging upside down like a piece of laundry, and sets down right side up and begins looking for a way out of the plastic box.

Around 11:00 a.m., on a sunny Saturday with light breezes, we took the butterfly box out to the yard.  I removed the lid, and put my finger down to the most active of the two butterflies.  It crawled onto my finger and I lifted it from the box.  From there, I set it down on a zinnia.  With the flapping of the wings, I was able to determine that the first one I released was a male.  There were two wide spots in the stripes of the hind wings which can only be seen when the butterfly opens its wings.  Butterflies can only fly when their muscles have been warmed enough to work, so I decided to move the butterfly to a flower in the sun.  I didn’t get a chance to complete my plan, because he chose that moment to fly for the first time.  He went high up into my neighbor’s cedar tree, and I never saw him again.  But at least I got some good photos of him while he was still sitting on the zinnia.

With the second butterfly, I took the box to the front yard where it was very sunny, and let her warm up.  Before I let her out, I took a movie of her flapping her wings around in the box.  Then, she climbed up on the stick that I had put in the box for them to perch on.  I opened the box and lifted the stick out.  She immediately flew off, heading across the street, almost become a splat on a passing car’s windshield.  However, she made it off to the trees beyond the road, and she, too, was never seen again.

I helped one male and one female survive the most vulnerable stages of their lives.  As eggs, caterpillars, and chrysalises, they could have been eaten by a predator.  Although the milkweed makes them toxic and untasty to birds, it’s still a risk.  And life as a butterfly isn’t without its risks as well.  Still, it was a beautiful thing to observe, and I’m glad I got the chance to see it.

The county mowed a field of milkweed a couple of weeks ago, just down the street from my house.  I worried that it might mean I wouldn’t see as many monarch butterflies this summer.  Milkweed is the only plant that monarch caterpillars can feed on.  I decided to get some milkweed for my yard and see if that would help.

A day after I planted the milkweed, Bob reported to me that he had seen a monarch butterfly landing on one of the plants.  I checked out the leaves, and found several tiny eggs on them.  I took a couple of them inside to observe.  Eventually, one of them hatched, and the monarch watch was a reality.

Now it’s been almost a week, and the catepillar that crawled out of an egg the size of a poppy seed is now ten times bigger than that.  It’s munching a milkweed leaf that I harvested from one of my plants.  Today, I checked out the plants, and found another little caterpillar.  Rather than leave it where a bird or another insect might think it was a tasty treat, I brought him inside to be with the first caterpillar.

I have a plastic box with a vented lid that was designed to house hermit crabs.  It turns out that it is a perfect place to raise monarchs.  I know this because I raised two before, when I was taking a class from the Audubon Naturalist Society on the natural history of butterflies.  The caterpillars ate their way through dozens of milkweed leaves, then crawled up to the roof of the box and turned into a pair of chrysalises.  Later, when they became butterflies, I released them into my yard.

I hope I have the same happy ending to the caterpillars I have now.

On Saturday, Bob and I got up early to go see the trilliums at the Thompson Wildlife Management Area, near Markham, Virginia. It is the largest concentration of them in the state. The phenomenon is known as “Trillions of trilliums,” and that is not that much of an exaggeration. I’ve posted 34 photos from this outing on my Flickr site.

We took I-66 West from the DC area. It was about 50 miles to Exit 13 to Linden, VA. Soon after, we took a left, going East on Route 55. After maybe a mile, we took a left onto Route 638, and went back under I-66. We followed the road for a few miles until we saw signs for Thompson WMA. Be sure to follow the road as it takes a sharp right (if you miss the turn, you’ll end up in the Skyland Estates development like we did, and have to turn around). We did the trails in two areas: the Upper Ted Trail, and the Trillium Trail. Both had lots of trilliums. Most of them were still white, which means there will probably still be trilliums to see in early May.

We saw a few other wildflowers as well: rue anenome, yellow violets, wild geranium, bloodroot, cutleaf toothwort, and jack-in-the-pulpits. As for bird life, we heard plenty, but we were looking more on the ground on this trip than in the trees. Still, we managed to see two warblers: an American redstart and a worm-eating warbler. We heard towhees encouraging us to “drink your tea,” which was ironic, since I didn’t get any that morning due to the early start.

I know that meditation, ideally, is about dismissing all thoughts from one’s mind and focusing on the here and now.  Given the disorder which is my mind, if I can get it to focus on only one thing, I’m doing well.

Bob and I came to the open air museum three days into our Death Valley vacation.  Before I left on the trip, I was plagued with worries about mortality and whether my existence on this earth has any meaning.  I highly recommend a drastic change of scene, if you can afford it, to chase away the mid-life angst I was feeling.  In particular, the works at the open air museum invigorated my mind and energized my mood.  The only question was, how could I keep this feeling with me when I traveled home at the end of vacation?

I stepped into the spiral and started to focus on one thought at a time.  In a way, I was making a request to the universe.  Please help me to accept life and its inevitable end.  Help me to appreciate the moment that I am in.  I repeated these two things as I strode the circle, looking down at the many stones on either side of the path.  Then I began to think of all the times in the recent past that I have felt as good about myself and about life as I did at that moment: finding the Hoodoo Marker, researching the Garden of Almanalogy, playing music with my friends.

I reached the center of the spiral, and looked up toward the sky, but nothing came to me at that moment.  So, I started winding back out of the spiral and as I did, noticed the variety of size, shape, and color of the stones.  There’s a place for everyone in this world, and no need for everyone to be the same.  I picked one of the stones to represent myself, and reached down to touch it with loving kindness.  The last thought that came to me in the circle is that I should seek out, as often as possible, those people, places, and things that make me feel happy to be alive.

Not long after this trip, I had another opportunity to follow the wacky side of life that I love so well.  I don’t know when or if I’ll get that story up on this blog, but if I do, at least you’ll know why I do what I do.

However, the current resident of the house on MacArthur Boulevard still gets the occasional question about the house which she bought ten years ago from an owner who told her nothing of its history.  After she moved in, passers-by began telling her what they remembered of the “Calendar House,” as it was known.  Still, no one had ever told her of the name of the man who was obsessed with calendar reform until I emailed her recently with my curious request.  I had found a reference to the Garden in an old guide book called Amazing America by Jane and Michael Stern, and wondered if there was anything left of it.  Taran Z kindly gave me a tour of the house, which is now home to her photographic studio (http://www.taranzstudio.com/).  We determined that the numbers on the post related to Rothe’s proposed  calendar: 7 days in a week, 13 months in a year, 28 days in a month, and 91 days in a quarter.

In 1947, confounded by the difficulty of knowing what day of the week a particular date would be, Rothe decided to fix the problem himself.  He came up with a 13-month calendar in which each month had exactly 28 days.  The 13th month would fall in the middle of summer, and be called “Solarius.”  Sundays would always be either the 7th, 14th, 21st, or 28th of the month.  But that only added up to 364 days.  No problem…Rothe added a 365th day, not part of any week or month, that would begin each New Year: Earth Orbit Day.  Every four years, another “extra” day would be added to the calendar called “Quadrennial Day.”  Another extra day would need to be added every 3,323 years.  But other than that, he dubbed his calendar “perfect.”

In 1954, Rothe’s “Universal Calendar” was one of several proposals before the United Nations in its search for a common calendar for all nations to use.  The debate was postponed at the request of the United States, representing the views of religious groups.  Christians, Jews, and other religions that observe the Sabbath every seven days, objected to any calendar that would disrupt the cycle, which the undated 365th day on Rothe’s calendar most certainly did.  The discussion at the U.N. was never resumed.  Rothe never lost faith in his calendar, and continued to promote it until his death in 1976.  He appeared on “To Tell the Truth” in 1964, and it is rumored that Einstein visited him at his home.

Rather than his convoluted calendar theory, it is the Garden that interests me most.  What must his neighbors have thought when he erected large concrete structures in his side yard with the numbers 7, 14, 21, and 28 and the slogan “Sundays Forever”?  Did they object to the 8-foot arch which honored Orbit Day, inscribed with the message “Climax Day after orbiting 687,803, 131 miles in 365 days at 66,000 m.p.h.”?  It would seem not.  I found several newspaper articles between 1955 and 1981 for which Rothe was interviewed, and none of them mentioned any conflict with the neighbors over his elaborate calendarium.

The Garden was actually located in two places over its approximately fifteen-year history.  It was created at Rothe’s home on MacArthur Boulevard in the Palisades area of Northwest Washington.  Later, he moved about a mile away to the Spring Valley neighborhood near American University, taking his sculptures with him.  A recent correspondence with the owner of the second property indicates that by 1989 (when he acquired it), there was nothing left of the Garden of Almanalogy.  It’s a pity that no one saw its value as a folk environment, and tried to save it.  I’m sure the American Visionary Art Museum would have loved to have had the sculptures, if it had existed back then.

A couple of interesting side notes to this story.  One of the articles about the Garden was written in 1966 by ace Washington reporter Carl Bernstein.  He moved on to more serious journalism after that, I’ve heard.  Another article was written in 1972 by Washington Post writer, Henry Allen.  It is this article that amuses me the most.  If you read between the lines, Walter Rothe comes across a quite a piece of work.  Speaking of the MacArthur Boulevard house, Allen writes:  “He has lived there for 30 years, since his German-born wife returned to Germany at the beginning of World War II.”  Maybe I’m being unfair, but I have to wonder how bad things were between them if she wanted to return to Germany during the height of Nazi power.  Later in the article, it is mentioned that “After he gets the world to adopt one calendar, he’d like to devise one religion for everyone.  ‘I don’t see why it can’t be done,’ he says.”

References:

Bernstein, Carl.  “Universal Calendar Lets Time Fly in Formation.”  Washington Post, Times Herald, October 30, 1966.

Allen, Henry.  “Hail Solarius!”  Washington Post, Times Herald, May 12, 1972.

Stern, Jane and Michael.  Amazing America.  New York : Random House, c1978.