edward c. morse (part 1).

These Morse Family Tree entries will almost definitely continue being rewritten for awhile, in the interest of clarity and my eventual satisfaction.

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Above: Nan/Antoinette, mom, Pop/Ed, around 1965? Pitts, if you don't like this picture send me another one.

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I associate Pop's death with the beginning of my first adulthood, or what I thought was adulthood. I was 25 when he died, which seems way too old, based on what I know about myself at the time. Or, maybe it's not too old, I mostly just can't believe it was only 15 years ago.

What am I saying. In 1994, I had finally started to believe that I wouldn't be fired from my two-year-old job, that people wouldn't find out that I had lied on my resume and lied in my interview and that basically I didn't know the first thing about PCs or software. In fact, around 1994 I started to believe that I was really, really good at my job, which was, in fact, true.

In 1994 I also broke up with a long-time girlfriend that I'd been living with for those same two years (and dating for six total). Oh, she'll probably read this at some point, won't she. How about if I just say this: have you ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend that EVERYONE you know cannot fathom at all? Like, no one even begins to get why you two are together?

Unfortunately, nobody really tells you these things while they're happening, do they (unless you're about to get married or have a baby). On some level, you know something's not quite right, but you hope for the best. And then what you hear afterwards is, "God, I never understood why you guys were together."* Or worse.

Well, one very very good friend tried to tell me that he didn't understand, in rather blunt terms (I would quote him, but what if she reads this? That's just mean), we were drunk in a crowded Chicago bar, it's possible she was even somewhere in the room, and I seem to remember getting mad, defensive, all the cliches. And, very sadly, that was the last time he and I spoke, probably also 1994. I've been looking for him pretty hard for the past 10 years or so but can't find him. Brian Carlson, if you're out there...sorry bud, you were right.

I will say this: without her, I would never have interviewed for That Job in the first place, a job which truly changed the course of my life and just generally booted my ass into adulthood. I was trying to impress her, or possibly not get yelled at by her, maybe both. Whatever it was, it worked.

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In 1994, I flew up to Kane, PA for Pop's funeral. It was my first funeral, or at least my first as an adult. I don't remember too much about it other than the sun shining through the closed drapes, the inhuman coldness of Pop's forehead, and most distressingly, how unbelievably small he looked in his casket. He'd always seemed like a terrifically big man, with bulging calves and forearms; in earlier days I can remember holding on to his index finger when we crossed the street together, it was like I was holding onto a moving tree.

After the service and a night or two at the Kane View Motel (memorable mostly for the coin-operated Vibro-Massage beds), I was to drive Pop's car back down to Atlanta: he'd left it to me in his will, quite a statement on his part. This was a man who was meticulous and knowledgeable about his cars, and for just about every year of my youth he and I could be found discussing the ins and outs of that year's Lincoln Continental.

In 1994, it wasn't a Lincoln, but an equally big golden Pontiac Bonneville, which I would spend the next six years accidentally demolishing bit by tragic bit until I donated it to charity in 2000 in preparation for moving to Europe. Pop and I did not see eye-to-eye on automobile care and maintenance, but I imagine that that was because I was a spoiled suburban punk who'd never had to struggle for anything in his life, and he'd lived through the Depression and served in World War II.

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But the point of all this, this point, this trip south in Pop's car, this is where I feel like something began. Maybe call it Part I of my real life. I can completely see the synthetic, wheat-colored inside of the car, the grey skies and wet autumn scenery of the Catskill Pocono (? what mountains were these?) Mountains outside, and a freshly-unwrapped copy of Jeff Buckley's Grace in the cassette deck for the first time. And a mix of excitement, optimism, nostalgia, and love of the unknown.

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This post hasn't really been about Pop yet, has it.

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* I think we all know what the answer here almost always is.

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verne v. morse.

These Morse Family Tree entries will almost definitely continue being rewritten for awhile, in the interest of clarity and my possible eventual satisfaction.

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Of all the dead relatives I've never met, I would say I'm probably closest to Verne. Of course close isn't the right word, but he's been a part of the story for a long time, since I was very young, and his name was always spoken with that sad reverence that accompanies the names of those who've died tragically young and/or in a way that left those around them permanently changed.

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As a result I've given him a bit of thought over the years, but pretty randomly and without really having any useful facts about him at hand. I'd always heard that he was a "war hero", which of course renders his death outside of battle in the days after the war ended actually situationally ironic I believe. 

Can't find much reprintable material out there, but it appears that his behavior on D-Day as part of the Omaha Beach landing has been written about in a couple of places, and yes, everyone probably knows this but me, but the gruesome first 24 minutes of Saving Private Ryan are in fact based on the Omaha beachhead assault. Here's his picture on file with the Army, he looks quite a bit like his brother George. Also note the ears.

He is buried in Margraten, near Maastricht. Pop had always wanted to see his brother's grave, but never got a chance. He asked my mom that if she ever got over here, would she take a picture of it for him. Well, he asked her this before I ever had any inclination of even visiting Europe, much less living here. And so for me to have spent the last 10 years or so within a three-hour train ride from Verne's grave is an especially bittersweet coincidence.

Speaking of coincidences. My mother did come over once, back in 2002 or 2003, and yes we did go down to Margraten and take a picture of Verne's grave. Which I can't find at the moment.

But amazingly enough that's OK, because before we went to Margraten, I bought an Eyewitness travel guide about Maastricht & South Limburg (pictured above). One night, a couple of months after my parents' visit, I was in bed just looking through the gradually evolving stack of books on the bedside table, and found the Maastricht book there near the bottom. Flipping through, I ended up on one of the pages about Margraten, and for some reason I took an especially close look at the one headstone they'd pictured out of the 8,302 graves there:

Don't know if you can read that, it says "Verne V. Morse".

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tying up.

So, just to pull together the last remaining London bits: on Wednesday we ate almost exclusively home-cooked food, although we did have lunch at a Giraffe down on the South Bank. Why? They're kid-friendly, which is never a reason to eat anywhere. I had "huevos rancheros" and a Red Stripe.

I made dinner, three fish dishes. For starters, a room temp tuna, white bean, raisin, almond, mint salad based on this, and those old chilled smoked mackerel rilettes on toast. After that an experimental fillet of very lightly cumin-dusted plaice with caramelized fennel, garlic leaves, and tomato-orange bulgur, not something I would normally make. It was OK...I was trying to use up the dregs of their weekly CSA box because another one was due the next morning.

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On Tuesday, I'd spent a lot of time in the East End and found it to be my favorite part of the city so far. This picture is from Electricity Showrooms in Shoreditch, a nice place to rest your exploited feet for 20 minutes or so.

On Thursday, I went to Borough Market, got a haircut at Mr. Toppers, then cruised over the East End and after ambling about for a while, took a long walk out past Banglatown and out into Commercial Rd. Completely accidentally, I stumbled across a Tayyab's that was not packed. I'd read that this was some of the best Pakistani Punjabi food in the city, and that there was always a wait to get in. So, it being dinner time, me being hungry, etc.

I had a lamb saag, and it was interesting and good, totally unlike any lamb saag I've had before in that it wasn't an ocean of creamy or buttery spinach: the spinach was minimal and sported more recognizable components than your average overprocessed green goop.

It wasn't exactly an enjoyable meal though...the place is terribly crowded and they're really in a hurry to get you in and out. I could take it or leave it.

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older frontiers.

These Morse Family Tree entries will almost definitely continue being rewritten for awhile, in the interest of clarity and my eventual satisfaction.

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I've talked before about the Italian immigrants in western New York and Pennsylvania, as well as northern Ohio, but that was in the context of Mara's family: I didn't realize that my own relatives were also part of this same wave of Italian immigration.

My grandmother's side of the family departed Naples and landed just west of PA's anthracite "Coal Region" in the early 1890s (without my grandmother having being born yet).

Pictured above is the non-Italian side of the family: John Morse's son, George W. Morse (front left). Behind him is his son, my grandfather's father, Wycomo Morse. Next to George is his wife Ida Adella Hatten, and next to Wycomo on our right is his sister Winnona, and his sister Mabel is off to the left. This photo was almost definitely taken in Dubois, PA, before 1912 when they moved to Oil City.

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Hard to say where to focus first, my information's all a-jumble. We could start with the men's ears and we could wonder if over generations the ears flattened against the head a tiny bit (they did). But let's instead start with Wycomo.

Now, just so we have the cast of characters straight: my grandfather is Edward C. Morse, son of Wycomo (not the nuclear engineer or the soldier who died at Pearl Harbor). Ed had two brothers and two sisters; his older sister, Dorothy (Dot), will be the narrator for most of the quotes. She was 12 years older than Ed, here they are together:

But the first quote is from Ed himself, who I called Pop, and who died 4 September 1994, before I got to talk to him about any of this stuff, or much of anything at all really. I mean we spent many, many fun-filled hours together before I was a teenager, but as I got older, you know how it goes...less and less so. I was just on the verge of becoming an actual human being when he died. But more about Pop later. Here's what Pop wrote about Wycomo:

"Wycomo was an exceptionally hard worker. He enjoyed farming. Had a passion for cars but was the world's worst driver. Extremely devoted to his wife who was in ill health a large share of her adult life. She died in March 1943 and he died in November. The obituary in the local paper stated in effect that he died of a broken heart."

Wycomo, 1906:

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Well, one more quick note about Pop/Ed. I'd already known this, because it's an important part of what happened to him after WWII, but seeing the data in this weirdly clinical and inefficient format made it sink in differently.

As I said, Ed had four siblings: Dorothy, Esther, George, and Verne. His older sister Esther died in 1938 at the age of 27 from a ruptured appendix. Ed and and his brother Verne went off to fight in 1941, and they were there until 1945, participating in the Battle of the Bulge and other variously traumatizing battle situations. When Ed was discharged in 1945, not only was he a prime candidate for what we now call PTSD, but he came home to deal with the fact that both of his parents had died in 1943 (see above).

He came back to Punxsutawney and married Nan in February 1945. In May June 1945, just after V-E Day celebrating the end of the war in Europe, Ed found out that Verne had died in Germany. Not in battle, the battle was over, Verne was one of the more decorated Pennsylvanians in WWII; Verne had contracted meningitis and died in Germany before he could ship out.

More on this later maybe. But thus...this was the family into which my dear mother was born, December 1946.

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old frontiers.

Photo by Klary. Ever forget about a food? I forgot about green peas for a few years. I'm pretty sure that the picture above is of the last time I'd green peas before tonight, at Marius in 2007, monkfish with pea and mint risotto.

Three years without green peas. And I like peas. I just forget about them. Tonight I made a pea recipe from Mr. Jamie Oliver that is a total keeper. He has you putting a good bit of mint in there as well, but I made it without tonight and it was great. Really perfect proportions.

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pea mash with or without mint.

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2 tbsp olive oil
3 scallions, chopped
500 grams frozen green peas, defrosted
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped (optional)

Ample sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a pan and add the chopped scallions, mint if using, and peas. Saute for 1 minute, cover, and leave for a few minutes to steam. Mash or don't, with or without masher. Add butter, heat until melted and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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morse family tree.

These Morse Family Tree entries will almost definitely continue being rewritten for awhile, in the interest of clarity and my eventual satisfaction.

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We're going to try an experiment here. Yes, another experiment. Probably along the lines of Dutch Word of The Day, The Great Pizza Hunt, Cook The Cookbook, and other short-lived VDuck failures.

Maybe this one's different, a little at least. I've got this binder, a physical binder, like for schoolwork or other research, that is in effect the most complete existing genealogy of, well...me. One of the women who was responsible for raising me pre-1975 or so (the one who is not my mother) put this together in the 1980s, as a gift to me.

Of course, for a teenager, there is really no more appropriate or relevant gift that you could give, right? Not really. In fact, I would assert that there is no time in your life when you might be less interested in a family history than in your teenage years. Or at least my teenage years. Feelings of indestructibility, a certainty that you'll "never be old", possible rebellion against the very family in question, seeing them as the bank, the warden, the obstacle, the whatever. But probably not seeing them as a subject for engagement, interesting research, and/or documentation.

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Oh, well, you know........time passed, as it does, and when I came across the genealogy binder at my parents' place this past Halloween, I brought it home with me. I started poking around in it, but as you may know, I'm an insomniac, one of the causes of which is an unhealthy fixation on mortality. A family tree is pretty much a flow chart of People Who Died. So, I needed some kind of reason for messing around with this stuff other than morbid curiosity.

And ultimately my reasoning here is not unmorbid at all, but at least I find it somewhat motivational and somehow calming: I've been thinking about death and legacy even more than usual lately, as a result of writing another piece with The Good Collaborators (it's supposed to be therapeutic, this writing process). And I started thinking about what happens to intangible or esoteric family heirlooms of the childless, not a new subject, pretty timeless actually, but one whose parameters have changed dramatically in the last 10 years.

It would now seem that the Internet is going to be around for "awhile". It's especially reassuring that, post dot-com boom and bust, several major participants seem to have stabilized (Google, Yahoo). And we can see that some companies' "free" products and the information invested therein could possibly be around for "a long time".

So my point is that it's possible to imagine one's data surviving without one, if one were inclined to imagine such things. And this data I have, this genealogy, I believe mine to be the only copy, or, if it's not the only copy, it's one of maybe three, tops. And I don't see the other binder-holders doing this: putting as much of it in digital form as possible. Not all at once, just when I have time, inclination, etc.

Why here and not in some genealogy database? I think I feel like writing about it. If anyone else wants to do something more structured with the information, be my guest. As long as the structured thing you want to do doesn't involve identity theft or similar.

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Pictured at the top of this post is Jo3n Morse, my grandfather's great-grandfather. It's unclear when this picture was taken, my completely haphazard guess would be something like 1850. We know that John Morse had a son in 1849 in Attica, NY, but we don't know much else about John other than that he married a woman named Orilla Gibbs. What a great name! Orilla.

And John is as far back as the Morse name has been traced in relation to me. There isn't a ton of information about him, so what we'll probably do next is move a generation closer to John's son mentioned above, George W. Morse.

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The who-married-who-and-had-what-kids stuff is pretty dry, so I'll try to keep it out of the (hypothetical) posts and into some kind of footnotey kind of thing. The more interesting information is contained in a 20-page letter from my great aunt (my grandfather's sister Dorothy), just kind of rambling about anything she can remember about the old days of the family.

I'm already learning much. Today, for example, I discovered that the Italian roots of my family (my mom's mom's side) go back to Naples. Specifically, a woman named Florence Antoinette Leno (b. 1857), my grandmother's great-grandmother (and thus the female equivalent of John Morse?). In the notes for her entry, it says, "She played the guitar...loved to play and sing. Also-liked wine!" Shocker.

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big jim.

So, I'm back, and happy about it, except for feeling totally stomped. Had a little more energy today and surprise of surprises, started working on another Double Headphone Project, which is just about the most productive thing I can think of doing at the moment.

The other productive things I could do would be to somehow have an un-sedentary moment, and also to take a break from animal products and ingest a vegetable or two and some fiber.

This has been going on since yesterday, I made a nice but not-very-special stir-fry with cabbage, onion, sichuan pickles and tofu. Tasty enough. And now I'm going to roast some carrots and make some mushy peas.

UPDATE: This recipe is proof that not everything we do is Thoroughly Repeatable. It's not...bad, per se. It's just not good by itself, too sour. It might be nice with some falafel or lentil burgers. But as is, it's just sitting in my fridge not being eaten.

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roasted carrots.

3 tbsp water

1/2 cup pomegranate molasses
3 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp cup finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
700-800gr carrots, peeled, halved maybe

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh mint leaves

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Oven at 190C. Combine first bunch of ingredients, coat carrots, cook for 35-50 minutes. Remove from oven, toss with nuts and herbs.

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brindisa man sandwich.

Chorizo sandwich with piquillo pepper and arugula from Brindisa at Borough Market. Onboard The Boat. This is what Haarlemmerstraat looked like at 11am, a little too early for lunch. Which is too bad, because Hollandaluz was setting up to sell chorizo sandwiches. A comparison would've been tasty.

total fox.

I know this photo is kind of Nessie-ish, but really, it's true: the creature next to the green spherical thing is a big-ass fox. In the backyard here at Crouch End. He (she) then proceeded to leap up on to the fence and tiptoe his (her) way across the backyards looking for something to plunder. Moments later we saw him come back the same way with something rodent-oriented in his mouth. Quite surprising, the whole thing: the fox's size (way bigger than a coyote) and obvious wildness vs. the population density of this neighborhood. Don't know how he (she) does it, but it totally explains the Sounds Of Unpleasant Death I heard in the middle of the night a couple days ago.

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martha @ tate.

everybody dies.

As promised, we ate at St. John Bread and Wine Tuesday night. Below, in order: Rock Oysters. Slip Sole with Monk's Beard. Potted Rabbit. Ox Heart with Chickweed and Pickled Walnut. Ham and Wild Dandelion. Suckling Kid, Chicory, Anchovy. Custard Tart with Prunes.

I liked most of the food, some quite a lot, but indeed it wasn't All That, miss Z, or life-changing in any way (except that I ate someone's heart). It was really basic stuff, borderline boring.

One problem was perhaps that the evening's menu didn't have that many challenging-sounding things on it to begin with, and even less by the time we got there. I'd popped by earlier in the day to look at the menu since I was in the nabe, and this is what it looked like at noon:

So, for example, the afternoon's Monk's Beard, Anchovy & Duck Egg had been replaced by Slip Sole & Monk's Beard, and this was the most disappointing dish of the night.

Highlights for me were the ham and the ox heart. And the rabbit. Could eat those again today. Fish and especially dessert were disappointing. And the room, which I liked the look of, was loud, loud enough to where it became a bit difficult to comfortably converse...which wasn't so awesome.

Overall, though...I liked the food, and am thinking about dropping back in today to try one more thing if I end up in the neighborhood. A big Sorry to all you animal participants, and thanks for giving it up.

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unrelatedly.

no. 10 chinese restaurant, london.

OK, this has been the best meal I've had in London so far (and I haven't had a bad one). Spotty internet access prevents me commenting further at the mo. Below: "crushed cucumber with garlic and chili oil". It wasn't really crushed. Below below: dry-cooked duck with Sichuan pepper. £13 not including Tsingtao. I didn't even order off of the white specials board; these dishes came off the Sichuan pages at the beginning of the menu.

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breathing tube.

Bhel puri again yesterday, along with a rasa vada on the left. This time I was at Sagar in the West End, and...it was good, but not as close to my Atlanta memories as Diwana from Saturday. Another good South Indian lunch, though, and under £10.

Below: sign outside a pub in Brixton, which I did not venture inside. In fact, I had a pub-free day yesterday. I know, amazing.

After Brixton, I had a couple of hours to kill, so I got off the tube in Islington with no map and no clear plan. And then walked in almost the right direction for about 2.5 hours. Which was mostly pleasant, except for the last 45 minutes or so during which my feet nearly went on a transport strike.

I did see the most visually-appealing McDonalds ever:

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Tonight, dinner at St. John Bread and Wine with the birthdayish girl and her manly man. The menu looks veddy iiiiinteresting, boss.

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out in the streets.

I went to Electric Avenue today. Don't laugh, but I didn't know there was an actual Electric Avenue until I was standing on it today. C'mon, I can't be cool all the time.

And here's what it looked like.

Basically like a very big and more urban, African, and food-centric Dappermarkt. Which sounds great, right? But I was kind of disappointed, I guess only because we have a large West Indian population in Amsterdam, and this was kind of shockingly similar. And remembered Brixton being edgy as fuck the last time I was there. It probably was.

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Martha is almost four and a half years old. The things that have come out of her mouth in the past couple days are killing me, completely. the last one was, "Mummy, may I water the courgettes?"

I hope to have video soon.

monday monday.

I just realized today that babies make me a little nervous because you can't talk to them.

Note to self: Borough Market is open again on Thursday, this should be part of the plan.

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Above is Crouch End. And below is a set of sensible groupings, strictly for my reference, although if you'd like to join me, you're welcome to.

Victoria line to Warren St, then Tottenham Court Road heading south

Mr. Toppers, 10 Moor St, Chinatown.

Quinto Books, 59 Charing Cross Rd.

Sagar, 17 Percy Street.

National Gallery, Trafalgar Square.

any line to Liverpool St heading east

Rough Trade East, Old Truman Brewery.

Brick Lane Market.

Green & Red, 51 Bethnal Green Rd.

Lahore Kebab House.

Victoria Line south to Brixton.

Brixton Market

Picadilly Line south to Earl's Court or Victoria Line north, change in Green Park

No 10.

home bodies.

So, after a day of banging around from farmers' market to Hampstead Heath to Highgate, back to Crouch End for shopping, Kenny made Jamie Oliver's cauliflower risotto, and it was awesome. I'm going to rewrite the recipe at some point for simplification's sake, but here it is as Kenny made it. You should make it too, it's really good, perfect for an adventurous vegetarian palate.

tiptoe.

These photos were taken from the train last Friday, heading south to Hoek van Holland.

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