The Color of Water.: A black man's tribute to his white mother. by James Mc Bride 1996 301 pg

 25/11/23        Ruth's Narrative

The Tatah was a Orthodox  Rabbi that got a years contract at small town congregation but after a year he had to move as he was not popular. He worked as a Hebrew teacher and kosher slaughterer, and a mohel and had worked at Glen Falls, Bellville , New York , New Jersey, Port Jervis.  In 1929 the came to Suffolk Virginia which was a peanut capital with a  couple of movie theatres and a few stores and a white and black side of town.

Tatah set up Shilski's Grocery Store in the black part of town and it was closed on Saturday but the only store open on Sunday. There was a lot of through traffic as well as soldiers based at Norfolk and the business did quite well. Tatah abused her Ruth. It was a place of Klu Klux Klan and Tatah did not like blacks. 

There was her brother Sam, her and younger sister Dee Dee and the father would teach them the old testament.

Soon after Sam's bar mitzvah he ran away from home in 1934 to Chicago and would write letter to his Mamah in English but Ruth had to translate them into Yiddish as she spoke little English.  

Suffolk had a black school a white school and a tulmud torah at the shull, teaching Hebrew and bar mitzvah. Jews had to buy property in certain areas some places were reserved for WASPs. Both black and white were very poor and they would fish to get crabs and turtles on the Nansemond River. their family were never hungry but lacked love.

She had one friend at school who was prepared to play with her despite her being Jewish. Ruth had a relationship with a black boy Peter which was very dangerous, she fell pregnant and  her mother who knew sent her to her grandmother in NY where her grandmother got her an abortion. She did a year at Girls' commercial high school and then returned to Suffolk to finish school. In NY  she stayed at Bubah (grandma) and worked at aunt Marys leather factory while she was at school. At the time Dennis was working there. She describes Harlem in those day as the centre of entertainment, and got different jobs there. 

Back in Suffolk Peter meanwhile got a black girl pregnant and married her. Tatah would take her to meet his Jewish suppliers to find a marriage partner and she learned the business thornily. Tatah wanted to set her up on a trade route with the farmers of the area and she could have made a lot of money, she drove a truck here. Mamah was ill and could only use one hand but managed to cook and do everything. Tatah went off with a non Jewish woman with 4 to 5 kids and wanted Ruth to look after Mamah but she had to get away and Dee Dee held this against her.

1941 Summer Bubah died and they sent a letter to Tatah about this Ruth had to translate it into Yiddish, later on Mamah died and now she was totally cut off from Suffolk 

Bach in Harlem she lived with Dennis who had come from High Point, North Carolina the same town as John Coltrane  As a musician Dennis could not make a living. They had children together and later he married her. This was at a time when most interracial marriages did not last. The lived in a single room sharing a bathroom and kitchen in 1943. Dennis went to night school and qualified in Divinity. They now lived in a house in Red Hook  and they set up a church in their home.

When they had enough members they found a place for the church and Ruth had to hire it as the owner did not want blacks.  Dennis got ill with respiratory disease and died, Ruth did not know while he was dying of cancer. Ruth now a widow had been with Dennis for 16 years.1957 Soon after James the 8th child, the writer was born. When she tried to contact her family now her aunt did not want to know her and she found out that her brother Sam her brother had died in the war.

James's (the author) narrative

The end of the book James gives a list of his sibling and the fact that all of them have more than one degree some are doctors, academics, professors etc

8 McBrides  Andrew , Rosetta, William , David , Helen , Richard, Dorothy , James.

4 Jordans  Kathy, Judy. Hunter, Henry. In the end Ruth herself got a BA at Temple University.

1966 Black Power permeated St . Albans Queen,  Malcolm X had been killed the year before. Mom instructed us never to reveal details of our home to people of authority like shopkeepers , social workers etc. Ruth worked at the Chase Manhattan Bank on the shift from 3 pm till 2 am. James parents believed that money without knowledge was worthless. Education tempered with religion was the way to climb. She considered white folks evil to blacks but forced her children to go to white school to get the best education. "What is money if your mind is empty"

Our house was a combination of a 3 ring circus and a zoo.

When she went shopping for clothing it would be to get the best deals at Delancey street where she negotiated in Yiddish but would not tell her children how she spoke that. She spoke about Jews as being different to other. whites. When the children asked her what color is god she answered "the Color of Water" She said she was light skinned and when asked if they were black she answered the are "Human Beings"

Every year the New York Public school System would send out a notice of vacant places in schools enabling kids to be bussed from other areas to fill them, and her kids ended up travelling miles to schools at predominantly Jewish white neighborhoods.

His older brother Richie was arrested on a minor offence and told to plead guilty by the court appointed lawyer, Ruth got up ran to the white  judge and burst out that her son is a collage student and get top marks. The judge seeing her a white women cancelled the charges, if she would take responsibility for her son. Other wise the children were embarrassed that they had a white mother. The stepfather Hunter Jordan Sr. was easy going and treated all the children as his own. James regarded himself as a black man with a Jewish soul.

Hunter Sn. lived in his own house near work he worked for the NY municipality fixing and operating their boilers and came home to them on weekends. He had a beautiful house that he had paid off the mortgage and had put his soul into it, it was appropriated for development and he was paid out very little as the area was being renewed. After that he moved in with them permanently. It was traumatic when the stepfather died after 14 years marriage and Ruth was in a state of depression. James now neglected his school work and started taking drugs. Ruth then sent James to stay with father's sister Jack  in Louisville, Kentucky for summer. Here he saw how people lived and realized the importance of education when he got back.

1974 most of the older kids were studying on scholarships and could not help her so she sold the house in NY and moved to Wilmington, Delaware where the cost of a house was cheaper but commute to school or work longer.

1975Graduated from school and when he got into Oberlin Collage on a scholarship to study music she put him onto the Greyhound bus with tears in her eyes she knew it was her duty to send her children away. She did not want him to be close by collage as it would not be good for him.

1982 he was in the south and to Suffolk the grocery store had become McDonalds and he knocked on the neighbors door introduced himself. "You mean you  are Rabbi Shilsky's grandson" James phoned his Mom who then cried on the phone when she spoke to Eddie.

By now James had been a  successful reported and moved to the better news papers but kept giving up his jobs and always got hired at other papers. He was already married with 2 children. Once doing a report on a Jewish school in Quean's and he mentioned he had a Jewish mother the headmistress told him that then by Jewish law he is Jewish.

1992 He knew he had a story about his mother especially because she was so busy hiding her past and as a reporter started to research and went to Suffolk.   He found that DeeDee left Suffolk soon after her mother died one semester before graduation. The few left of the Jewish community made him very welcome and told him that the next generation had moved off, there had been up to 30 Jewish families at one time. Ruth's brother Sam had  been in the air force and died flying over Alaska. Eventually he traced her friend Frances and she and Ruth picked up where they left off.

In his music career James sold some of his compositions and won the Stephen Sondheim awards for theater composition.

This book has sold 2 million copies and is studied at schools.

2010 Ruth Mc Bride Jordan died aged 88 in Ewing NJ. Born Ruchel Zylsk, then Rachel Shilsky, Ruth McBride and finally Ruth Mc Bride Jordan.

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The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store  by James McBride.2023   389pg   8/11/23

This is a work of fiction but based on the Color of water you understand that  Chona reflects Mc Brides Grandmother as well as his own  real mother. While his own grandmother was unloved and treated badly and deserted by her husband Chona has a happy and loved life.

1972 June  The State Troopers found a skeleton at the bottom of a well and it had a mezuzah with it. This was  in Hayes street and the next day the street' was torn up for development.  They knocked on the door of the only old Jew living on Chicken Hill of Pottstown where the old synagogue used to be. Except for Chicken Hill the whole town was washed into the Monatawny Creek in a storm a few days later. This was  1972 when  Hurricane Agnes struck.

47 years before the Moshe could talk the horns off a devils head. Chicken Hill was the run down area where the towns Jews, blacks,  immigrants who couldn't afford better lived.  Chona gave Moshe a talk on Moses and he fell in love with her. The parents were overjoyed that someone was marrying their disabled daughter. This was a real love marriage despite being childless. Chona's mother died 2 years after the marriage.

Moshe financed by his cousin ran a dance hall theater and brought Black bands and his fortune grew. Moshe now wanted to move to a better neighborhood buy Chona refused.  Nate worked for Moshe at the theater and his wife Addie helped in the grocery store that Chona would not give up. She also suffered from a strange illness. Chona and Moshe had 12 wonderful years together and went to far off doctors as they didn't like the local Doc Roberts, who had been at school with Chona had a crush on her as he also had a Polio limp. He had marched at the head of the Ku Klux Klan and she wrote to the press that you can recognize him despite the sheets he wore in a KKK parade. On parade day the Jewish stores closed and the Negroes were not seen on the street. Chona kept her store open. Negroes fill Chona life with tales and stories about their escaping the south. 

Isaac had led his cousin Moshe over 1000miles on Europe to get to Hamburg and America. at 37 his had the biggest theater in Philadelphia. Malachi bought the bakery but because he did not know the business and baked such bad hallah went bankrupt.  Passed away = she got her wings.

Homes were enclosed by the filth of factories that belched bitter smoke into a grey sky.

Dodo was a kid that was hurt when the stove exploded and lost his hearing and was looked after by Nate and Addie. Chona gave him shelter in the shop to hide him when the state wanted to put him into an institution, he would cross the fence to Bernice brood of kids when the inspector came. She was a single parent not even Nate raised the question as to who was the father or fathers. Somebody had given Dodo away.

Bernice Davis was Fatty Davis's sister and at school with Chona could sing like a Robin everywhere but not at school.

Nates work crew had build  the Rebs, 3 story house with the grocery store on ground floor.

17Jewish families raised money to build a shull. Moshe wanted to contract Nate but the German Jews wanted a proper architect who pocketed the money and left Pottstown.

Shad was saving to send his children to Lincoln University a Negro collage in Oxford Pa. or Oberlin College Ohio the first white university to take Negros in America. 

Chona and Bernice each made a dress Bernice's was better both using the same stitch, however the teacher ripped it apart as it was not the stitch type she had instructed this broke up the friendship. 

Chona read about socialism and Emma Goldberg.

The WASPs all claimed to have originated on the Mayflower  of 1620 but this was nonsense.  Doc's society was established before the Jew, Greeks, Mennonites and Russian Orthodox arrived and the Negroes came from the south.

By 1932 , Bethlehem Steel, Jacobs Aircraft Engine Company and established there.

A girl married Doc because he was a doctor they had 3 children and a loveless marriage. He was always attracted to Chona. Descent white people attended the Presbyterian Church.  " Jews and Negroes were polluting the towns white teenager with their Jazz, Chona husband was the worst". Chona had never been one to play by the rules of American society. Every act of living was a chance for Tikun Olum. The women with the bad foot was all soul.

Doc came into the store Chona had a epileptic fit and he attempted to rape her. Dodo who was hiding in the store attacked him and police were called and Dodo who tried to escape broke his legs and was put into the Pennhurst, mental asylums'. Dodos real name was Holly Herring. "Dodo would get a good education there" The rumour about Doc raping was in town. "pity there nwas no white man in th store , it would put an end to the rumour" Doc was in a state on nerves and somehow had Chonas mezuza pendant in his pocket which he wanted to dump at Chicken hill. 

  Dodo he learns sign language to talk to  Monkey Pants. When Son of Man the orderly rapes him Monkey Pants throws  feces on him. Dodo understood this was an act of love and solidarity.

Jews here no longer want Yiddish music and theatre they want to be cowboys and even Negro musicians.

Louis Armstrong had the powerful Joe Glazer as a manager.

The Spanish singer brought descarga , ponchando ,tango , piano guajeos , mamba, Africano Cubano. They introduced Puerto Rican, Dominican Panamanian , Cuban Ecuadorian , Mexican music. Sister Rosetta Thorpe was a gospel singer of the 30s and 40s.

Nate had served in Graterford Prison where he was called Nate Love. He was scared of locked places.

The shull  mikva was getting water from the farm pump it had been clandestinely joined but now with drought had run empty. Dealing with the anti-Semites of the local council was a problem. The frog in the mikva. story. The wells were drying out and Nate was asked to secretly join the shull water pipe to the council on. The manhole lid had to be replace with new concrete cover

Lowgods 

The town was made great by being cannon makes gun makers steelmakers. The celebrate George Washington victory at Valley Forge.

 Skrup was a master shoe maker who could do anything with shoes

Plitzka the mayor of  had gamboling debts. Fatty and Bernice's father had planned to save money to send them to collage but he died young. Doc Roberts was mistaken for Plizka as he was wearing a Red military uniform instead of Blue and beaten up. He wondered and fell down the manhole which was later covered.

The guy who delivered eggs to the asylum, Nate opened the door to meet Son of Man and plunged a knife into his heart. He got hold of Dodo then

 onto the train where it was arranged that 2 railway workers to get them away. 

Nate went south and had 3 children and eventually died in 1972.

This book is full of humour with a happy ending, its similar to Mark Twain and Dodo is the Tom Sawyer character. Dodo attempts to fly to escape.

Malachi is prophet number 12 followed by Jesus. negroes know who they are. Bernice echoes Mc Brides real mother who had 12 children. Micky the egg man is a Faulkner type character.  There is the theme of antisemitism, remember the 1960 the good relations between Jews and blacks.

McBride aged 19 saw a job offered at a summer camp for a dishwasher but was given the job of a councilor, he had no idea, then, that the four summers he would spend at the Variety Club Camp for Handicapped Children in Worcester, Pa., would leave an indelible impression on his life - and become the foundation for his new novel "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store."  for 15 years he tried to write about his experience there

  

The Source: How Rivers made American and American remade its rivers by Martin Doyle 2018 355pg.

15/11/23

The USA has 250,000 rivers or over 3million miles of river..

 The Grand Coulee Dam, WA is the largest power plant in the USA 

The Fall Line is the point to which a river can be navigated  and then the mountains begins, along this line a lots of settlements and places of trade were set up. George Washington realized that the US north and south were already developing along different lines and location where there was transport through the Appalachians mountain would develop more.  In the north British Canada had access through the St. Lawrence and the Hudson Valley, while the Spanish at the time controlled New Orleans and trade on the Mississippi. Thus if they could not get transport eastwards could never develop properly.

1777 A fort was set up by rebels in the American Revolution  to defend a point on the Hudson against the British this later became West Point Academy. By the end of the Revolutionary war almost all US engineers had been trained by the army.

1784 Washington travelled and found the best portage way over the Fall Line connecting the Potomac to the Ohio River. Building a canal would involved different states and this had limitations under the Articles of Confederation. At the time it was felt that the USA was too large to govern as one country.

The Constitution had it root in interstate river navigation and the Federal Government had to initiate interstate trade. Canal companies and River Navigation companies formed as private corps. and were given monopolies to encourage them.

Building canals costs were higher than these private companies expected as well as just maintenance and   after storm damage. New York  to the Great Lakes was was only an elevation of 600ft above the Hudson River at Albany.

The Erie Canal solved the east, west commerce problem. Nature had done this work by glacial erosion. and it was only 600 feet above the fall line.  Freight cost here dropped from $125 to $6 when this was completed in 1825 causing enormous industrial and agricultural development in this area and was the entry of immigration to the west. The Erie growth was to the detriment of the other canals who got into enormous debt in the canal fever and bankruptcy. Since then the Erie canal has been replaced by railways and trucking

1761 till 1801 New Orleans was under Spanish Rule acquired  by the Treaty of Fontainebleau later it reverted to France.

1801 President Jefferson set up the first University for technical training in Virginia. In 1802 he establish the Army Corp of Engineers mostly based on French Engineering. 1929 Robert E Lee graduated into the Army Corp. of Engineers and for 2 decades he designed  fortifications in Savanna and Baltimore as well as levees on the Mississippi. Eventually this Corp. would be involved in all canals and waterways.

1804 Louisiana Purchase  by the United States under Thomas Jefferson. This doubled the size of the USA. The Missouri and Mississippi basin were now accessible. This resulting in sending the Louis and Clark Expedition which returned in 1806.

1807 Robert Fulton made the first trip to Albany on a steam ship that was not dependent on wind, this became a big business on the Hudson.

1824 The Supreme Court declared that the major waterways are under federal jurisdiction and did not allow monopolies The Army Corp. of Engineers were charge with the management of maintaining the rivers.  When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 this agency was charged with the new environment protection.

New Orleans between 1810 -1820 became the fastest growing place and became the second largest city after New York. 

Today one Barge Tow on the Mississippi can pull barges of 60,000 tons, this is equivalent to 400 loaded railcars. At New Orleans it is mostly empty barges they return with. Back in the days of Mark Twain he said that man cannot control the river. The US Coast Guard  maintain the buoys that indicate that there is a channel of at least 12 feet clearance. Massive reservoirs store spring runoff and let it run out slowly during summer. The bulk of the cargo is grain and petroleum products.

The original Erie Canal  could take boats of 30 ton, then it was expanded  in1862 and could take  boats of 240 tons. This was replaced in 1918 by the Barge Canal by today it is hardly used for commerce rather only yachts motor or fishing boats. The Erie Canal is different from others in that it is entirely under NY state.

1933Tennessee Valley Authority. It was to control flooding, Improve navigation and create cheap electricity. David Lilienthal  a lawyer was in charge of it. During the depression these projects were useful in absorbing labor. The construction of Fort Peck Dam alone employed 11,000 people.

From Vicksburg Mississippi to Memphis Tennessee on both sides of the river and levees of solid walls of earth 300 feet across at the base. The flow of the Mississippi will fill the Hoover dam in just 3 days.

When the floods come it is the Army Corp. of Engineers that with trucks and helicopter deal with this.

The navigable rivers are bordered with the most fertile land,

New Orleans Vicksburg , Memphis and St Louis are topographically just outside of the floods areas.

1850 In California a levee district was set up along the river to protect Sacramento. Where these levee districts are  set up people have to pay higher taxes to raise funds. Narrowing the river makes it run faster.

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Miles of navigable rivers are bordered by the most fertile soil. New Orleans is an important port an the Government felt compelled to deal with the chronic flooding. The US Army Engineering Corp saw levees as the only option and rejected the approach of reservoirs to hold flood water and then release it in the drier periods, because of the cost. Without levees large floods could spread out onto the valley floor. However the development of agriculture and removal of forest up river would affect the Mississippi downstream. Straitening the river and removing the meandering made it easier to navigate, gave extra farming land but resulted in greater chances of floods which followed in 1897,1912, 1913.. 

1927 flood was so great that south of St. Louis thousands of miles of railway track was under water, that the cost was felt by the whole nation causing a loss of a third of the annual federal budget. Perhaps another cause of the great depression.

1928 Federal Flood Control Act. Thus the Federal Government got into the act of flood control and this could draw into work enormous numbers of unemployed rural workers, especially under the New Deal Programs.

1957 Example of Federalization when Eisenhower used the army to enforce desegregation against the will of the Arkansas governor in Little Rock. 

Later the Federal Government  set up weather station flow gages and computer models and the US Geological Survey to warn of flood potentials so that downstream could empty reservoirs ahead of time. Levees usually burst when water pressure under them gives way and so immediately sandbag crews have to be mobilized to block sand boils.

Under the  Reagans Revolution federal spending was cut back and states had to pay 50% of the projects so they stopped new projects.

1993  Under Clinton was the wettest period in the Midwest and the question was asked " should be be working and living in flood plains in the first place" Protecting cities made economic sense not quite with rural farmland. Especially since the private insurance industry had no appetites to take on this enormous risk. Floodplains might be better suited as natural ecosystems of swamps and wetlands.

2005 Hurricane Katrina the  costliest hurricane to hit the USA.

New Orleans the older part of the City is above the water level but as the city expanded it moved to places low down. Over a million people had to be evacuated. The cemetery here bodies are in tombs above the ground not below it. This was affected by 9/11/2001 as 40% of the Louisiana national Guard were in Iraq at this time.

   Under common law a riverfront or riparian property owner  has the right to use the water  what is considered "reasonable". This law is attributed to the east coast which is water rich.  In California miners diverted the water from rivers to had dug trenches . At the time this was sparsely settled state land even though California only became a state in 1850. The mines had to be continuously worked to keep the claim and farm had to be continuously worked to keep them in the great plains. The earlier the settler had a "senior" water claim over newcomers. This was okay but what happened in drought years 

1847 The Mormon settlers of Utah with water rich streams of the Wasatch Mountains needed canals.

In the early 20 century the population in the west grew dramatically. 

1902 The supreme court has continuously had to settle disputes Kansas vs Colorado.

1922 Supreme court rejected the notion of absolute sovereignty of rivers by states.

1928 Boulder Canyon Project. Signed by President Hoover authorizing what later became the Hoover Dam. It was agreed on the amount of water Colorado ,Utah Wyoming New Mexico Arizona would get from this project.

1939 Colorado was supplying the water for Los Angeles     

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While farmers of the Great Plains were notoriously self sufficient, independent setters of the Interior West could not set up irrigation infrastructure.

1847 When the Mormons arrived at he Great Basin of Utah they immediately diverted water within 20 years they had set up a system of canals and diversion dams.

Hydroelectricity served to encourage settlement also stabilized flows and rerouted rivers into canals.

Water used in the west has been dominated by agriculture as it arrived first and got senior rights, then the  urban population came and demand for  water increased eg. willing to pay a premium for water. Markets allow water to be reallocated to where it is most valued.

Their are property firms that sell all the water and then abandon the land to a dusty useless future.

Container ships bringing good from China return with hay instead of returning empty.

Dendrochronology is the science of tree rings they also reflect the availability of water. Some trees checked are 5, 6, or 7 hundred years old.  Sampling is done by using a large hollow drill bit and taking out a cylindrical core.  This can tell you about the flow of the nearest river in the past and the climate.

Native Americans are claiming senior water rights in their areas.

A functioning water system , clean tap water and reliable sewer system is a great accomplishment of technology.

In fighting the American Revolution, the states incurred great debts. Hamilton wanted the Federal Government to take over this debt Jefferson did not. Jefferson considered that decentralized finances meant decentralized power. State Governments sold bonds to pay for infrastructure and people using this would pay tolls and fees.

The success of the Erie Canal encouraged other canals with foreign investment most often from London but many canals were not completed and defaulted on the debt. 1842 The US government was unable to float a bond in European money markets.

1837 The railways funneled an never ending stream of grain , beef iron corn and timber, and the US population grew and rapidly growing cities developed and investors turned to Municipal Bonds.

Getting water into and out of cities is an important function. Cities have storm sewers and sanitary sewers, but they are usually combined.

1902 City of local government tax revenues exceeded state revenues..

1851 Chicago lost 5%of it residents from a cholera outbreak they drew their water from Lake Michigan and empties their sewers into it. Afterward the moved their sewers to the Chicago River that was fast flowing into the  Mississippi. This was aerated naturally and by the next town the water was clean but with increasing population towns were too close to each other and other methods were needed. Till 1910 90% of sewerage was untreated. In Chicago  2000 cows or hogs or sheep were being slaughter at day. Water supply and waste water treatment had now become the largest item of municipal; government debts.

During the Depression John Dobson build  North Durham  Water Treatment Plant this was the first of many in the US. The New Deal brought electricity to the rural masses.

1913 Congress passed the 16th Amendment and began in 1914 collecting income taxes to fund the war. After the War Income Tax remained. In the depression cities could not take on extra debt so projects ground to a halt. After WW2 the US had a fundamentally different financial structure than before the war. It taxed nationally and then spent the money via grants to state and local government. 

1920 The League of Women voter formed in the aftermath of the women's suffrage movement. They started calling for street cleaning programs. By the 1950s Water Pollution became a big topic discussed by housewives. 1963 the  lobbied to clean ups lake Erie. Industries started treating their own waste.

1840  Regular shipment of guano arrived started arriving in New York

1913 German  scientists perfected the production of nitrogen  fertilizer. The run off of excess fertilizer was now starting to destroy Shrimping 

1991 Ronald Reagan economics cut the spending to be able to cut the budget and forced the waste water infrastructure to be paid for on a local level.

Regulation this restricts individual rights for the sake of the common welfare. England industrialization was powered by coal and steam , America's ran on dams.

1840 by this time there were 65,000 dams in the US with a population of 17 million people. The fall line was a barriers to transport but a source of power.. As far back as 1660 waterwheels were already being used in New England. A gristmill was considered at the time a public service and were given monopolies' in their area. Wood was turned into lumber and flour was exported. Later on textile mills formed near water wheels and US textile mills surpassed that of England.

When hydroelectric or steam power was developed manufactures no longer need to cluster around rivers.

1879 Edison introduced the light bulb, every area was given a Electric monopoly, as it was regarded as a public service like the old grist mill.

1970 Clean Air Act 1972  Clean Water Act. Environmental concerns became increasingly valued.

1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) Stream restoration emerged as a booming sector of America's environmental economy. Rivers for fishing were now becoming valuable, trout reproduced in meandering rivers and not the fast flowing straightened ones. Meandering rivers are rich in biodiversity. Destruction of trees bordering rivers had changed conditions.

1930 Institute of Fisheries Research set up at the University of Michigan. 

The Scripps Institute  of Oceanography in California.

The decline in trout was rearing them in hatcheries and stocking the streams.  Roosevelt had been critical of development and looked for ways to preserve the nations natural resources. During the depression stream restoration absorbed labour in local states.

Beavers made dams and this slowed the water from the upstream but beavers were hunted for the pelts. Rock weirs were set up and these cause the water to rise and flood the area, this causes the sagebrush to die and the native grasses to flourish in the damp soil

 

Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal 2002 292pg.

How Muslims , Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain.   28/10/23

The author is a professor of Spanish and Portuguese literature.

750 AD The book begins in Damascus and ends in Granada 1472 Abd el Rahman abandoned his home in Damascus when the ruling Umayyads who had first led the Muslims out of Arabia  and were eradicated by the Abbasids who seized control. His mother had been a Berber tribeswomen from Morocco and he was in his early 20s.  He fled to the Maghrib(West) then crossed to Gibraltar to the el Adaluz in 785. With the support of the Berbers and Syrians , he the son of a Caliph  the successor to Mohammad..

756 He formed an army and won the battle. Abd al Rahman became the governor of this Islamic outpost.  He now became the legitimate home of the Umayyads with Cordoba the seat of the capital.

Back in Damascus the Abbasids moved their capital to Bagdad away from the Umayyad legitimacy.

In  el Andelus - Christians , Jews, Moslems lived side by side and nourished a complex culture of tolerance with religious freedom comparable to the modern "tolerant" state.   Arabized Jews rediscovered and reinvented Hebrew. Christian embraced Arabic style philosophy and architecture.  Even the Moorish style of some NY synagogues comes from that.

 

410 the Visigoths a Germanic tribe  had sacked Rome. Rome had governed Spain from 200 till the Visigoths took over .and in 580 the Visigoths joined the Universal Catholic Church..

622 the most powerful Arabs in the dessert were the Bedouin. The Islamic calander hinges on the hegira when Mohammad and he followers moved their capital from Mecca to Medina.

623 Mohammed died without leaving a successor.

661 In the bloody Kalifate that followed. Ali who was  married the prophets daughter was assassinated. From Medina the capital was moved to Damascus.

The Dome of the Rock was build by the Umayyads on the  sight of t he Temple representing Islam as the Children of Abraham.

711 The Islamic Empire continued to spread to areas that had been parts of the Roman Empire and to the Berbers of the Maghrib.

Abd al Rahman was the only Umayyad  survivor  of the massacre of Rasufa  and he went west. He arrived with in 50 years of the Muslims arriving in Europe and could not return to his Damascus home. He now returned political, and cultural order. With stability and long reigns of orderly succession with sons and grandsons who often had Christian mothers  taking over the economy revived and the population increased.

Arabs were the ultimate class of distinction, while Jews and Christians were protected by Qur'anic mandate. Now Jews rose from the abysmal ciaos, Greek philosophy was translated into Arabic.  

In Tunis the descendants of Ali and his wife Fatima pretenders took over. These Fatimids regenerated a dangerous rival  for the Andalusians.

Cordoba had 900 baths thousands of Mosques with running water from aqueducts and paved, well lit streets and libraries . They had a vigorous trading economy. Near Valencia a big paper industry was set up and paper was cheap.

1009 Bitter wars began between the Islamic rival factions, the destruction was by Berbers who brought in as mercenaries. the keep the peace.  This resulted in the destruction of the gardens and palace of Madinat al Zahra.

1031 The Cordovan` Califate collapsed. A whole sector of the well educated Jewish population left the former capital Cordoba. Rodrigo Diaz known as El Cid fought for both Moslems as well as the Christian  leaders. 

With the Collapse of the Califate, Moslems found themselves living in Christian cities.  Mozarabs were Arabized Christians living in Islamic areas. You also had Spanish speaking Christian moving south with the mingling of the languages and religion.

Sicily had been Islamic since the 8th Century you now had Christian Normans encountering Moslems there.

1072 After 34 years Palermo became capital of a Norman kingdom.

1095 Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to conquer the Holy Land.

1085 Alfonso VI made Toledo his capital.

1086 the Almoravids a fundamental Muslims sect were brought in to help the Calif to defeat the Christians and defeated Alfonso IV. In Cordoba the Almoravids burned books and the works of the philosopher al Ghazali as their form of Islam was violent Jihad.

1248 Seville was taken over by Ferdinand III of Castile . The great Mosque of Seville had be reconstructed as a splendid cathedral of the Castilian Capital. Alfonso IV had been buried there and  on tomb in it with 3 languages on it Spanish ,Arabic and Hebrew.

In the second half of the12 Century you had Latin Christian crusading forces and equally fanatic Berber Almohad's

1348 The Bubonic plague killed 20% of the population and this was documented in the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio..

1391The old Jewish prosperity of Spain ended in a annus terribilus.   The Spanish Inquisition was set up to rid Spain of 800 years of ills and tradition.

By the 13Century Arabic Stories in Latin and vernacular languages become best sellers of Europe and influenced European literature.

1492 After the Reconquest the Jews are expelled from Spain, by Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra Decrees.

1497 King Manual I expels Jews from Portugal.

 Note this book explains a lot  of the great literature during the el Andalus period

  

Defy the Wilderness by Lynn Reed Banks 1981 300pages

 This is a novel that documents life in Israel at the time of writing, it makes interesting reading in 2023 with Israel in  the current Gaza crisis. 1/11/23

Her husband Peter had fought in the Western Desert in 1943 and vowed that he would never go abroad again. She had travelled through Europe and arrived in the new Israel and been Manachems partner on the kibbutz where she taught English. She could not marry him in Israel but if she fell pregnant it would solve the problem . After a number of years Ann returned home and married Peter. 

She was now 49 and childless. She returned to Israel now as a reporter. In 1981 Israel was a country with no drug problem , no organised crime and patriotism was not a dirty word. She stayed now with Amnon in Jerusalem , he had not one thing from a broad in his flat.  Biologically a woman has to make life not end it. Kibbutz ideology was breaking down and people were returning to religion. Gush Emunim were the inheritors of the pioneering spirit.

Her friends were people who visited the1948  Palmach cemetery at Kiriat Anavim. If the dead could talk they would say "We won the war . Did you win the peace?."  People have modern Hebrew names no longer the biblical ones. Doubts are the mark of an intellectual, government Policy shaped public opinion..

She returned to Israel to get inspiration for a new book . A woman with a holocaust number tells her that previously women took part in the war now only men do.  If they want to give money for settlement let them do it in the Negev and Galilee.  Neville a Jewish reporter from Liverpool who has been in Israel for years says "My son took off into Israeli life and before we knew it we were strangers.

In 1973 Israeli Arabs generally did not support the war effort.  De Gaul did not pull out of Algeria for the sake of the Algerians. We must give the West  Bank back to the Palestinians not for their sake but for ours.

The 1973 war had seen Golda weeping and the opposition had accused her of causing young mens deaths.  Now it was their turn to scorn their political opponents.

The Muslim religion has never gone through any form of Reformation and Enlightenment the way that Christianity did.

In the early days one listened to every radio news bulletin.  A kibbutz is made up of whispers, the kibbutz will turn into a village and the comune will end.

There will always be wars that we will win, but lose them in the forums of the world.

Amos Oz declared that Israel was established by 4 things:: communal activity , settlements, Jerusalem and the Hebrew language. 

The book ends with the "Bridge" theatre set up between East and West Jerusalem being blown up and a child actor being killed.

Lynn Reed Banks . was born in 1929, she married an Israeli sculptor and settled with 3 children in Surrey, England.