Evensong

Another Sunday, another evensong. This one shared with members of the choir from St. John's Lutheran Church in Stamford, Connecticut. 

According to Wikipedia, evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. It is loosely based on the canonical hours of vespers and compline. Old English speakers translated the Latin word vesperas as æfensang, which became 'evensong' in modern English. The term is typically used in reference to the Anglican daily office's evening liturgy.

Jack Slade

Enjoying reading Ron Chernow's Mark Twain, including this excerpt:

"In Roughing It, he [Sam Clemens] would tell how he was intrigued by colorful legends about Jack Slade, a stagecoach agent in the Rocky Mountains, reputed to be a homicidal maniac. He wrote that Slade liked to postpone murderous vengeance against enemies 'just as a school-boy saves up a cake, and made the pleasure go as far as it would by gloating over the anticipation.' Since rumor had it that Slade had killed twenty-six people, Twain allegedly sought him out on the ninth day of his journey west, but found a quiet, affable man, not a monster. When the coffee was running out, Slade offered to refill Sam's cup instead of his own, but Sam 'politely declined. I was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning, and might be needing a diversion.'" (Chernow, p. 74)

Trail Bites

A recent return to the Greensprings Interpretive Trail revealed higher than usual water levels in the swamp and . . . a correspondingly high number of bug bites. Ouch!

Last Call

Something decidedly appropriate about reading Daniel Okrent's Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition while enjoying a cup of tea. Curious the relationships between prohibition and abolitionism, brewers and distillers, as well as between the temperance and suffragist movements.