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Author: Anne Cassidy

Of Hominids and Humans

Of Hominids and Humans

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I wasn’t planning to read the entire Washington Post story today about Swedish geneticist Svante Paabo’s Nobel Prize in medicine, but the more I learned the more captivated I was. Paabo’s research into prehistoric DNA, a field he’s credited with founding, has shone a light on ancient humans, including Neanderthals and a new species of early hominid he discovered, the Denisovan. 

Paabo’s work has implications for human health in 2022: a genetic risk factor for severe Covid was inherited from Neanderthals, and 1 to 2 percent of non-African people have Neanderthal DNA. 

While the early hominid science was inspiring, it was the humanity of the scientist that touched me most. The photo accompanying the article showed a laughing Paabo being thrown into a pond by his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute. Paabo told reporters that when he got the call from Sweden at his home in Germany, he thought it was someone calling to tell him his summer house there had a plumbing problem.  

And finally, he gave a lovely tribute to his mother during his remarks. “The biggest influence in life was my mother, with whom I grew up,” Paabo said. “It makes me a bit sad that she can’t experience this day.” 

(A Neanderthal skull unearthed in Israel. Courtesy Wikipedia.)

Rainy Weekend

Rainy Weekend

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The weather in my corner of the world makes me think of a slightly altered cliche — you can’t keep a good climate down. The D.C. area is rich in sunshine, low in cloud cover and, at least for the last month or so, short on rain. Which means that last weekend’s wall-to-wall showers were quite welcome.

I made soup, culled old files, and washed and dried clothes to give away. The rain and cloud cover gave me permission to stay inside. It lent a coziness to time’s passage, blurred its edges. 

A quick glance at the weather forecast tells me we’re expecting clouds and rain for the next two days. Who knows what I might accomplish?! 

Gutenberg’s Bible

Gutenberg’s Bible

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The Writer’s Almanac informs me that on this day in the year 1452 Johannes Gutenberg finished printing the first section of his revolutionary bible.  More than a decade earlier, he had begun isolating the elements of each letter and punctuation mark (300 shapes in all) to create movable type. 

It’s a technology that had begun in China centuries earlier, using porcelain. Gutenberg’s type pieces were made of an alloy of lead, tin and antimony — a compound that remained in use for the next 550 years. 

Gutenberg printed around 180 bibles of which less than 50 remain, only 21 of them complete. But his printing press forever changed our technology and our culture. 

“What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg,” Mark Twain wrote in 1900. Perhaps a little less true today, but still a statement you can hang your hat on. 

(Illustration and facts from Wikipedia, additional material from The Writer’s Almanac)

The Departure

The Departure

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Often this time of year I write about the departing hummingbirds. It’s become a seasonal ritual, my sadness at seeing them leave every fall as dependable as my excitement at seeing them arrive every spring. 

The melancholy of September is necessary, then, part of the cycle. It’s the only way (short of their year-round residency) to see them again. They must leave in order to return. 

I thought I had seen the last of the hummingbirds a week or more ago, but on Monday I spied a small jeweled creature first at the feeder and then, moments later, hovering right in front of me.

Perhaps it had come to say thank you … or perhaps to say goodbye. 

The End of Cursive?

The End of Cursive?

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An article in the new Atlantic charts the disturbing loss of cursive skills among the young in this country. Kids aren’t learning to write longhand in school; they’re tapping keys instead. A college professor notes that cursive is becoming like ancient Latin or Greek, a tongue that needs to be translated.

This is horrifying and disappointing and yet more evidence that the world as we know it is falling apart … but it may solve a problem I’ve been mulling over for some time. 

As noted in the “About Me” section of this blog, I’ve been keeping a journal for most of my life, a practice that has generated a goodly number of notebooks through the years. While most of the material in these notebooks is absolutely positively squeaky clean, there may be a few passages that I’d, well, rather not leave behind. 

True, I could burn the lot, but I’d rather not. After reading the Atlantic article, though, I’m thinking my scribbles may be safe. Given the decline of penmanship instruction, it seems fairly certain that my grandchildren won’t be able to read my journals, and probably one or two of my children won’t either. 

The decline of cursive may not be good for civilization, but for those of us who keep journals, it’s a blessing in disguise. 

Artist at Work

Artist at Work

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Today the tree guys arrive to remove yet another giant oak. This one is in the back of the yard, alongside the fence. It’s not as dead as the two specimens felled last week, but is the most precarious of the bunch because it hangs over the neighbor’s property and threatens his shed.

Carman heads this crew. To watch him climb and cut is to observe an artist at work. His art is destruction, true, but it’s done with a flourish and a derring-do that puts even circus aerialists to shame. 

High in the treetops Carman manages rope and chain saw, deftly lassoing a 10-foot section of trunk, then sawing it off and (with assistance from the ground) lowering it down. To be hanging from the tree you’re cutting down seems an impossibility, but I watched him do it last week, watched him calmly and methodically take down the oak section by section by section … until it was gone. 

The Sandwich Trail

The Sandwich Trail

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You might call it the Sandwich Trail: a route that begins in forest, exits on the other side of the neighborhood for a mile of striding down a prettier-than-average suburban lane, then dips back into parkland again before returning. 

In the language of sandwiches, the woods is the “bread” and the long stretch of pavement in the middle is its filling. 

In the woods section I notice dry stream beds, new plank bridges, a path I thought I’d lost. In the pavement part I see houses with new siding, a massive and magical rubber tree, boulders in a garden.

Two parts trees and beaten-dirt trail, one part easy striding along a less-traveled road. A sumptuous repast. 

The Red Oak

The Red Oak

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Who knows when the great red oak was born, when the acorn that gave it life fell to the ground, found pliable soil, sent down roots? Decades, maybe 100 years or more, when second-growth forest filled in this land that once was farmed. 

I stepped into its history 33 years ago and found in its lofty shelter a stateliness and calm. It became, in fact, our signature tree, the one I think of first when I think of our house. 

It had been ailing for years, a fact I noticed with the same pit in the stomach I’ve had when running my tongue over an aching molar. But the measures we took — pruning, watering, fertilizing — did not save it. The ambrosia beetle, an opportunistic insect that moves in after years of drought and other stresses, killed it in a single season.

All summer I’ve been lamenting the tree’s brittle boughs, its withered foliage. I’ve been dreading the moment that finally came. 

Now the red oak is felled, its great trunk piled around the yard, so much lumber. Soon the logs will be carted away, too. 

It’s not the greatest loss I’ve ever sustained … but it’s a loss, just the same. 

 

Perfect Peaches

Perfect Peaches

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It’s as if the peaches had been practicing all season to look this rosy and smooth-skinned, this thoroughly delicious.  “Last big picking,” they were billed, giving those of us who’d come to haunt this particular booth at the Wednesday farmers market ample warning: don’t expect this fruit again until next July. 

I felt the same tug in my heart I’m getting when I notice turning leaves or lowered light. 

But who can complain when the tilt of the sun produces peaches like these? 

(The astute observer will spot an interloper in this photo. I threw in a lemon to keep the peaches company.)

Last Walk of Summer

Last Walk of Summer

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It felt much the same as other summer walks, this last one before tomorrow’s equinox. I left too late, not unusual for me, and got caught in what passes for rush hour traffic in my neighborhood, parents and buses rushing to school. 

I wore a sweatshirt that I tied around my waist at the halfway point. The birds were a little less chirpy, the cicadas nonexistent, so it lacked midsummer’s buzz and shimmer. 

But as I write this post on the deck a desultory cricket chirps and pools of light and shade dapple the backyard. 

It will be close to 90 today, and the grass needs mowing. It’s still summer.