Calvin Coolidge: Quiet, but Funny

I was not making it up when I said that my kids would rather hear historical stories than nursery rhymes.  I'll prove it.  Last week, I was driving the kids home from school and my oldest son asked me "What was that story about Calvin Coolidge that you used to tell us?"  Here it is:

Calvin Coolidge was president during the prosperous 1920s.  He mastered the art of not doing much yet still remaining popular.  America loved him even though he didn't talk very often.  He attended many social dinners, yet sat in quiet solitude.  Even though he seemed morose at times, Americans were pleased with their quiet president.  As long as they made money, they did not care what their president did, or in this case, did not do.  He was affectionately given the nickname "Silent Cal".

During one dinner party, the hostess was determined to get the president to talk to her.  She turned to him and said "You must talk to me Mr. Coolidge.  I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you."  Coolidge did not even look at her but quietly said, "You lose."

My kids love that story.  But here is another Coolidge story that I have NOT shared with my kids:

Mrs. Coolidge was taking a tour of a farm and was led to look at the chicken coop.  Mr. Coolidge was taking the same tour but in a separate group.  The farmer pointed to a rooster that was very frisky.  He mentioned that the rooster had sex several times a day.  Mrs. Coolidge said to the farmer, "Tell that to my husband when he comes by."  Several minutes later, when the president's group came the chicken coop, the farmer told Coolidge what his wife had said.  Coolidge asked, "Is it with the same hen every time?"  The farmer said, "No.  It's with a different hen each time."  Coolidge replied, "Be sure to tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."

The Senator

As I was working on my computer last weekend, my husband came up to me and said "I want to get out of the house today.  Let's take the kids someplace interesting."  I was not very interested in going anywhere at the time.  I had a huge stack of papers to grade for school and the kids were happily content playing basketball outside.  But my husband was insistent.  He did not know where he wanted to go.  He just had to be outside since the weather was so nice.  So, he charged me with the job of figuring out where to go.  I reluctantly got on the computer to find someplace unique.  

I came across a place called "Big Tree Park" in Longwood that sounded perfect.  It was only a half hour away from us in Orlando.  We had never heard of it before but we decided to give it a try.  We quickly packed a picnic lunch, rounded up the kids and drove to the park.  The park itself was really small.  It had a few picnic tables and a fenced-off playground for the kids.  The real star of the park, however, was the gigantic tree named "The Senator."  It was huge!  The cypress tree had obviously been around for a very long time.  It even looked old.  It had a white tinge to its bark and the top of the tree looked rather gnarled.  The plaque next to the tree stated that the Senator was estimated to be 3500 years old.  

 I took this picture last Sunday (1/15/12)

Well, my family fell in love with this tree.  The kids had fun looking at it and getting their picture taken near the big tree.  My husband and I were in awe of how amazing this tree was.  We wondered about all the events that this tree has lived through.  The things that it must have seen!  It had been here when Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas.  It was already the "old guy on the block" during the American Revolution and Civil War.  But what really impressed me is that it had even been here when the Chinese worked on the Great Wall and when Rome was founded.  How amazing is that?  This tree was not just an inanimate object.  To me, it was a living creature.  I could almost sense his majestic soul emanating from his branches high above his neighboring trees. 

The next morning was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  The kids and I had the day off, but we still woke up early anyway.  I was listening to the news while I was in the kitchen (those who live in Central Florida know exactly where I am going with this part of the story).  I heard the newscaster say "Big Tree Park" and a moment later, he said "fire."  I quickly ran to the television hoping that I had misheard that last word.  My hopes were in vain.  There, on the television, was the distinctive shape of the General in a fiery blaze.  I was stunned and heartbroken.  The Senator was the ONLY tree on fire in the forest.  All the other neighboring trees were untouched.  Firefighters were at the scene trying to put it out, but the tree was hollow, so that was making it difficult.  I was so sad when, an hour later, the news announced that it had officially fallen.  

What are the odds, that on a whim, my usually lazy family would have the idea to go visit a tree that they never heard of before and then the NEXT DAY, the tree burns down?  I am so thankful that we got a chance to see it though.  I did a little research on the amazing history of this tree and here is what I found:

The Senator was estimated to be 3500 years old.  It was the 5th oldest tree in the world.  The Indians used to use it as a landmark when they traveled.  It reached as tall as 165 feet (not as big as the Redwood trees, I know, but it is huge by Florida standards!)  The tree is named after Senator M.O. Overstreet who donated the land for the park.  Unfortunately, a hurricane knocked the top part down in 1925.  So, it was reduced to being 118 feet tall in the latter years of its life.  And it was still the tallest tree this side of the Mississippi River.  In 1929, former president Calvin Coolidge visited the tree.  It was located in a relatively swampy part of Florida, but during the Depression, the Works Progress Administration build a walkway so that admirers could easily get to the tree. 

On January 16, 2012 the tree caught on fire and fell down.  As of now, no one is sure why this happened.  Originally, the fire department thought it was deliberately set by someone, but they do not think that is the case now.  Some other possible theories are that lightning struck it two weeks ago and a smoldering ember finally ignited or that the friction from the swaying of the tree caused it to catch on fire.  Whatever the reason for the fire, it still left an irreplaceable hole in Florida.           

The Death of Kitty Genovese

I had an awkward moment at school yesterday just after the bell rang to release my 4th Period Psychology class.  About half of my students had already left and the other half were still packing up their backpacks.  Suddenly, from the outside walkway, we heard a female's ear-splitting scream.  The students and I all looked at each other in confusion, but no one moved to the doorway.  Some students said "What was that?"  Still, no one moved to the doorway.  In all honesty, I assumed that it was a student just blowing off some steam during exam week.  One student even said "I wonder if someone is hurt out there," but no one moved to see if help was needed.  They continued to slowly pack up their books.  As the "responsible adult" in the room, I really should have gone outside to see what was going on, but I assumed that if something bad had truly happened, another teacher was dealing with it.  

Now, here comes the part when I felt pride in my students.  But it is not because they all realized that they needed to help this poor girl who had just screamed outside our door.  One of my students said "This situation is just like that psychology concept you taught us in the beginning of the year:  The bystander effect." The bystander effect states that a person in need is less likely to get help if there are a lot of people nearby.  All the other students were agreeing that this situation was just like the bystander effect and laughing over our lack of altruism.  I was so happy because I always love it when a student brings up a term that had not been discussed in a while.  It lets me know that they actually paid attention in class!  The students leisurely left the room joking around, and I doubt that any of them even looked to see if there was a female student in distress.  

The bystander effect is one of the most interesting concepts in psychology.  It has been proven that the more bystanders near a person who needs help, the less likely that they will give that help.  An injured person lying on the street is more likely to get help if one person is walking by rather than twenty people walking by.  While this may seem counter-intuitive, it does make psychological sense.  If you are the only person walking by, you know that it is your responsibilty to help.  If there are other people in the area, you shift that  responsibility to someone else.  Meanwhile, the others are shifting the responsility of helping back over to you.  The result: No on helps!  Psychologists who first studied the bystander effect were given their inspiration from the tragic story of Kitty Genovese.

At 3:20 AM on March 13, 1964, twenty-eight year old Kitty Genovese was walking back to her Queens apartment.  She had just gotten off work as a bar manager.  A man quickly walked up to Kitty and stabbed her. Kitty yelled out "Oh my God, he stabbed me!  Please help me!  Please help me!"  Many neighbors woke up and turned on their lights.  One man opened his window and said "Let that girl alone!"  The attacker fled the scene.  Some witnesses stated that they saw Kitty get up and stagger away so they went back to bed. 

Kitty did indeed try to move and get safely into the apartment building, but the entrance that she picked was locked.  She was trapped.  The attacker came back a few minutes later and stabbed her again.  He also raped her.  Kitty yelled out "I'm dying!"  Many neighbors were woken up again, yet still no one came to her rescue.  One witness called a friend and asked him for advice about what to do.  The friend told him to call the police, so he did.  That first call to the police took place at 3:50 AM...30 minutes AFTER the first attack.  The police and ambulance arrived within minutes, but Kitty soon died.

There is some debate on how many people witnessed the murder of Kitty Genovese.  The numbers range from 12 to 38 witnesses.  Some claimed that they thought that Kitty was in the midst of a lover's quarrel and they did not want to get involved.  Others thought that the loud noises were coming from people who had just left a bar.  Some witnesses, however, were undoubtedly aware that Kitty was being attacked.  Sadly, the bystander effect played a tragic part in her death.

 

Pickett's Charge

The Battle of Gettysburg is considered to be the turning point of the Civil War.  And while the North had been forced to retreat out of the town at the end of the first day, they had gained the advantage by the second day.  They had successfully held the high ground along Seminary Ridge and braced themselves for another day of attack.  Robert E. Lee knew that it was imperative that he gain control of Seminary Ridge in order to secure a victory.  His  main worry was that his Southern troops would have to march across one thousand yards of open territory, and thus would be easy targets for the Northern cannons which were entrenched on Seminary Ridge.

At 1:00 PM on July 3, 1863, Lee ordered his cannons to fire continuously on Seminary Ridge in order to destroy as many Northern cannons as possible before the Southern soldiers crossed the field.  At 2:00 PM, Lee ordered his Southern troops to begin marching across the wide, open clearing.  The troops were led by George Pickett, J. Johnston Pettingrew and Isaac Trimble.  The majority of soldiers were Virginian, but there was a large group from North Carolina as well.  They numbered 12,000 and were stretched out across a mile of territory.  One of the outnumbered Northerners described the Southern advance as an "ocean of men sweeping upon us."

Unfortunately for Lee, his Southern cannons had aimed too far behind the ridge and the Northern cannons had not been destroyed.  They began to fire on the Southern troops marching across the territory.  Pickett's troops had nowhere to hide and their numbers quickly fell.  A significantly smaller group reached the Northern line where they were forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat.  They soon realized that reinforcements were not coming to help them, so they had to retreat.  Less than half of the original 12,000 soldiers returned to Lee.  Many Southern soldiers reported that they saw Lee crying when Pickett's men came back in defeat.   When Lee told Pickett to prepare his division for a Northern counter-attack, Pickett told him that so many of his troops had just died that he did not even have a division anymore.

I recently spent New Year's Eve with my husband's family.  Knowing that I am interested in history, my brother-in-law began to describe a statue that he saw at the Gettysburg battlefield site.  I found his description so interesting, that I decided to make Pickett's Charge the subject for this week's blog.  Here is what my brother-in-law told me about the statue:

The man in the front is a Southern soldier looking at Seminary Ridge with fierce determination on his face.  And while many would think that he is the obvious star of the monument, it is the men in the background who are the most interesting to look upon.  The man on the back-left is very young.  He represents all the fresh, new soldiers who's first foray into battle was trial by fire at Gettysburg.  This green soldier is looking up at the large number of Northern soldiers on top of Seminary Ridge with fear in his eyes.  The man in the back-middle is a veteran soldier.  He is older and has experience in battle.  He is talking to the young soldier and giving him encouragement.  The above picture does not show this angle, but the veteran is also touching the young soldier's arm.  It appears as if he is pushing the young, inexperienced soldier onto the battlefield.  Apparently, this "forced encouragement" was how many of Pickett's soldiers made it across the killing field.