Emmitsburg, MD 21727

After having dinner in Emmitsburg, at Otts pub, my wife and I drove out to Mount St. Mary's University. It's only a 5 minute ride. You can't miss it. It's quite visible from the road (Rt 15 South). The buildings are well marked and we drove right to Knott (Marion Burke Knott) Auditorium by following the signs. The auditorium is the site of the Chesterton Conference. There are some obviously older buildings further up the hill that are quite attractive. You can view a campus map here.


I found St. Joseph's Church right in Emmitsburg for Mass tomorrow. I couldn't find any pictures of the inside of the church. Maybe I'll take some tomorrow. Here's a drawing of the church from the church's web site.

ChesterTones to Perform at ChesterTen Banquet

The about-to-be-formed Barbershop Quartet, The ChesterTones, will perform at the ChesterTen Banquet. Members of the quartet are: Kevin O'Brien (Lead), Bob Cook (Bass), Joe Grabowski (Tenor), and Don Brady (Baritone). All, of course, are Chestertonians. We've all been working on the music independently (Kevin, just since the first of this week). Our first time singing together will be a a yet-to-be-determined practice at the Conference. It should be exciting.

A Change of Opinions

Lord Kitchener

The other matter is much more important. Though the reverse of vivacious, Kitchener was very vital; and he had one unique mark of vitality—that he had not stopped growing. “An oak should not be transplanted at sixty,” said the great orator Grattan when he was transferred from the Parliament of Dublin to the Parliament of Westminster. Kitchener was sixty-four when he turned his face westward to the problem of his own country. There clung to him already all the traditional attributes of the oak—its toughness, its angularity, its closeness of grain and ruggedness of outline—when he was uprooted from the Arabian sands and replanted in the remote western island. Yet the oak not only grew green again and put forth new leaves; it was almost as if, as in a legend, it could put forth a new kind of leaves. Kitchener, with all his taciturnity, really began to put forth a new order of ideas. If a change of opinions is unusual in an elderly man, it is almost unknown in an elderly military man. If the hardening of time was felt even by the poetic and emotional Grattan, it would not have been strange if the hardening had been quite hopeless in the rigid and reticent Kitchener. Yet it was not hopeless; and the fact became the spring of much of the national hope. The grizzled martinet from India and Egypt showed a certain power which is in nearly all great men, but of which St. Paul has become the traditional type—the power of being a great convert as well as a great crusader. It is the real power of re-forming an opinion, which is the very opposite of that mere formlessness which we call fickleness. Nor is the comparison to such an example as St. Paul altogether historically disproportionate; for the point upon which this very typical Englishman changed his mind was a point which is now the pivot of the whole future and perhaps of the very existence of Christendom. For many such Englishmen it might almost be called the discovery of Christendom. It can be called with greater precision, and indeed with almost complete precision, the discovery of Russia.

I guess I consider myself "an elderly military man." I joined the Air Force when I was 17, right out of high school. I served for 20 years. I've been "retired" for 28 years. That is, I retired from the Air Force in 1982. While I've held quite a few jobs since 1962, I think of myself as "retired Air Force", not retired from Battelle, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, or NewPage, my last place of full time employment. No doubt that is because whatever I am today was pretty much formed by my 20 years immersion in the culture of the Air Force.

What's the point? Well, I guess there are several. First, I think the quote (in red above) is quite true, certainly it is for me. Next, every time I've seen this quotation it is referenced back to Utopia of Usurers. I recently read Utopia of Usurers; it's not in there. As the picture at the top of this post implies, the quotation is from Chesterton's book Lord Kitchener. My best guess on how this happened is that whoever made the first reference might have been using Volume V of the Collected Works. The standard reference says pg. 396, of Volume V, CW. And the quotation does, in fact, appear on page 396, but it's in Lord Kitchener. Utopia of Usurers starts on page 399. Who cares? Probably no one, unless you're reading Utopia of Usurers waiting to read the quote!

Finally, Chesterton says a change of opinion is almost unknown in an elderly military man. I don't think I've changed my opinions about much in the last 28 years, but I have about laissez-faire Capitalism. And that change of opinions was caused by the writings of Chesterton, Belloc and all the other Distributists I've been introduced to by the members of the American Chesterton Society.

See Any Resemblance?

Again, my thanks to Ben Hatke for the great work!

Material Success, Something to Think About

Material Success

The American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, señor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

"You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, señor?"

The American laughed and said that's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.

"Millions, señor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

-- Anonymous

You Never Know When Someone Might Be Paying Attention

Yesterday I took a drawing of G.K. Chesterton (by Ben Hatke) to Hobby Lobby to have it framed. I asked the young girl (not as young as I thought, she's a college graduate) for help in choosing how to have it framed. She was very helpful, selecting a nice frame and some matting. As she was writing up the paperwork for the job, she asked me who the character in the drawing was. I told her it was G.K. Chesterton. She said: "I thought so." She continued: "You're the guy who sponsored the Hilaire Belloc presentation several months ago." I acknowledged that I had sponsored "Old Thunder." She said she enjoyed it. She then mentioned that she had recently graduated from Columbus College of Art & Design. I asked her if she had a web site for her work and she said yes. When I got home I checked out the site. The picture above is from the site. Here are the words that accompany the illustration:

New personal project, inspired by a line from The Everlasting Man by GK Chesterton. "The dark alien woman staring from her high lattice and hearing like the babble of a brook over a stoney street, the singing of little St Hugh" He was referring to the Medieval child martyr little Hugh, and the alien woman would've been a witch. Did a few character studies from Brian Froud and Alan Lee's book Faeries, just to have something to go from.

So, you just never know who your actions might affect.

I also gave her Ben Hatke's site, househatke.com, so she could check out his other work.

And here's the drawing I'm having framed.