January 2011

“Cents and Sensibility” (September 2000) reminded me that visual elegance is not all that has been lost thanks to “progressive” changes to our currency. Other sensuous elements have been sacrificed as well.

When the first clad coins were issued, my grandfather, a retired Pittsburgh steelworker, returned from the bank and called me into the kitchen. In one hand, he held a handful of clad coins; in the other, the same number of all-silver coins.

He gave the silver coins a shake, then dropped them onto the kitchen table, where they rang musically until the last coin had spun to a stop. It was a sweet sound, full of good memories: my dad jingling his pocket change when he was getting ready for work; the sound of silver being counted for ice cream from a street vendor.

Sweeping the silver aside and with a gesture of disdain, my grandfather then threw down the clad coins. They clanked, making a dull, dead sound.

In the May/June issue, “The Most Underrated National Turning Point” is listed as 1619, “when some twenty Africans were brought to Jamestown by a Dutch trading vessel. What if the tobacco growers of Virginia had simply turned them away?…Or [if] they didn’t want slaves competing with freemen in the fields?” Writes Bernard A. Weisberger: “That day in 1619 made us a biracial (later to become a multiracial) society, like it or not. And I am surprised how rarely I see it referred to with the gravity it deserves.”

I agree partially with Mr. Weisberger on the importance of that day, but, according to The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the Afro-American , compiled and edited by Harry A. Ploski and James Williams, those 20 black Africans came to Jamestown not as slaves but as indentured servants in 1619. They were freed and given land after a stipulated term, as were white indentured servants. They were even allowed to vote. White Irish and Negroes were even offered for temporary sale in the same newspaper ads while indentured.

Before Slavery Ruined Money Colleen’s Castle The Utility off Conventions A Pacific War Museum Preservation in Buenos Aires Towering Success A One-Day Grand Tour Where Was Bissell?

IN 1946 THE NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHER MURRAY GARRETT WENT TO HOLLYWOOD to open up the West Coast office of a photographic agency, and a few years later he struck off on his own. For more than a quarter-century, he recorded the doings of the movie world while television remade the rules (one of his assignments was a photo essay entitled “The Wolf at Hollywood’s Door”), and he assembled a vigorous and intimate record of life in the town that makes the whole planet a voyeur.

Recently, Garrett gathered his favorite photographs for a book called Hollywood Candid: A Photographer Remembers , which has just been published by Abrams. Garrett’s reminiscences accompany the pictures, which, as the sampling here attests, reveal along with their subjects a canny and consummate professional working with clarity, precision, and zest.

Every editor I know has briskly astringent advice on how to handle any article: “Cut it in half, and it’ll be fine.” But this advice is just that—advice, which of course means that it is only given to somebody else. It’s always harder to jettison material from one’s own story. But cutting J. Robert Moskin’s account of the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir in this issue was more than usually difficult. For instance, here’s something that went away: Early on the morning of December 11, 1950, Chinese troops ambushed a Marine column creeping down the black, frozen spine of Korea south of Chinhung-ni. Several drivers died at once, and their trucks started to burn. In the fighting that followed, Marine Pfc. Marvin L. Wasson somehow hooked up with Lt. Col. John U. D. Page of the U.S. Army and drove off 20 Chinese. A grenade wounded Wasson and gunfire killed Page; Wasson got first aid and returned to the fight, firing off three rounds from a 75mm recoilless rifle that destroyed a Chinese strongpoint. Then he left his gun to help push trucks of exploding ammunition off the road. Page got the Medal of Honor; Wasson, the Navy Cross.

My grandfather spoke to me about his experiences in the first World War only once, and that was abruptly and in anger. As young boys, my brothers and I would spend part of our summer vacations with my grandparents. One sweltering August night I climbed down from the attic guest room to ask my grandmother if I could sleep on the screened porch. She helped me gather up my pillows and sheets, and as we were rounding the second-story landing, my grandfather appeared unexpectedly. “What are you doing?” he demanded of my grandmother, who explained that I was going down to the porch, where it would be more comfortable. “Comfortable?” he snapped, wheeling on me now. “Comfortable? Do you know, boy, that when I was in France, we slept on rocks, and I never once complained.” With that, he retreated back to his room, glowering in disgust. I stood there mute and uncomprehending, not knowing what France was or what I had done. I did not think of his outburst again for almost forty years, and it is only now that I am able to understand it.

1735: THRALL V. THRALL

Although desertion provided adequate grounds for divorce in Connecticut, William Thrall decided to allege adultery as well. Hannah Thrall, who risked losing rights to his substantial property, fought back in kind. For the next several years, members of the tightly knit community of Windsor paraded through an austere New England church giving lurid testimony. Neighbor stopped talking to neighbor, and relative to relative. The court finally refused the divorce on the grounds that a husband whose behavior drives his wife away is himself the deserter. In 1739 William died, leaving Hannah a 36-year-old widow with a hefty nest egg and a flaming past that set the standard for American divorce scandal.

1760: LUFKIN V. LUFKIN