North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail by Scott Jurek

North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail by Scott Jurek

Five Stars

This is the story of a one of a kind super athlete. Scott is focused, self-motivated, and driven to extremes.

This is my second book by Scott Jurek, and it proved to be a classic. We both came from the same motivating Duluth/Superior area and were driven by intensive and compulsive drives to excel and surpass our environment. I departed in 1972 before Scott was born, but totally understand his needs to act. John M. Grimsrud, author.
Excerpts from North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail:

Nobody expected a twenty-five-year-old from Minnesota to show up and win the Western States 100, first try. Nobody expected a sea-level Seattleite to win the Hardrock Hundred, and certainly nobody expected a stagnant forty-something to run the Appalachian Trail in record time. Nobody; except the man in the ring. I thought about that Roosevelt quote printed on my 1999 Western States race guide: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”


I wasn’t becoming more powerful, not at all. Instead I was being stripped down not only of fat, muscle, and nerve but also of my mental toughness. I was losing it, but maybe that’s what I needed to do.

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream by Doris Kearns Goodwin

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The book Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream covers a pivotal point in American history, from dreams of the Great Society to the despair of Vietnam precipitated by McCarthyism’s obsessions that derailed it all.
This is a history we all need to scrutinize, ponder, and learn from.
I lived through this era and appreciated the opportunity to get this insightful overview the book presented.


Excerpts:
The needs of blacks, would offer the civil rights bill; as panacea to the nation’s need, offer the Great Society; and, amid the final crisis of his career, use Rebekah’s lessons’”almost her words” to justify America’s involvement in Vietnam: “There is,” he told the country, “a great responsibility on the strong.“ When I thought about the kind of Congressman I wanted to be,” Johnson said much later in life, “I thought about my Populist grandfather and promised myself that I’d always be the people’s Congressman, representing all the people, not just the ones with money and power. “My grandfather taught me early in life that neither misery nor squalor is inevitable so long as the government and the people are one” so long as the government assumes the positive role of eliminating the special interests that cause most of our problems in America” particularly the moneylenders largely confined to New York, and those who had the money supply and knowledge and possessions in New York, Chicago, and Boston. They’d always been paid proportionately a far higher percentage of the total end product than they deserved. They lived off our sweat, and even before air conditioning they didn’t know what sweat was. They just clipped coupons and wrote down debentures we couldn’t spell and stole our pants out from under us.”



Johnson spoke in his peroration:”Let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law and those who pour venom into our nation’s bloodstream.”Defeating the Southern filibuster and opening the way for Congress to pass the most sweeping civil rights bill in history. On July 2, 1964, in the presence of the leaders of all the major civil rights groups, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.



“We have enough to do it all.” We’re the wealthiest nation in the world. And I cannot see why, if we have the will to do it, we can’t provide for our own happiness, education, health, and environment.
I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion. I want to be the President who educated young children; who helped to feed the hungry; who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election.”
In speeches, legislation, and continuing proposals, Johnson took the most advanced position on racial issues of any President in American history; appearing, at times, ahead of the civil rights movement itself, until, sadly, the war in Vietnam extended its paralyzing hand to this as to his other domestic ambitions.
Every story is always slanted to win the favor of someone who sits somewhere higher up. There is no such thing as an objective news story. There is always a private story behind the public story. And if you don’t control the strings to that private story, you’ll never get good coverage no matter how many great things you do for the masses of the people.

Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS
Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads by Dee Brown

America and the world were eternally transformed by the steam-powered Industrial Revolution. Imperialistic expansion driven with steam power augmented an avalanche of emigrants fueled by unscrupulous robber barons who used the very best politicians that money could buy. These manipulative financial tricksters sold and resold paper certificates as flimsy as blue sky to eager investors. I loved this true story that is guaranteed to arose in you a strong emotional reaction.
Worthy of more than five stars.

Excerpts from Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow:
With all these arranged riches awaiting the taking, Durant was now ready to begin railroad construction, and his first move was to send one of his New York henchmen to Omaha to sound out Peter Dey. The chief engineer had already submitted estimates of construction costs per mile for the first hundred miles across the rolling prairie country of eastern Nebraska. Dey’s estimates averaged between $20,000 and $30,000 per mile, and Durant knew that Dey’s figures were close to the real costs. What Durant wanted was an inflated estimate, at least $50,000, which would pour $20,000 to $30,000 per mile of excess profits into the closely held Credit Mobilier.

They collected the $16,000 per mile from the government for the track laid by the workmen, the $25,000 per mile of excess profits from Credit Mobilier, the 12,800 acres of land per mile, and whatever else they were able to divert from the sales of stocks and bonds. Instead of singing, they were always spending money to generate money, and there never seemed to be enough.



Although the people of America were paying for the railroad it did not belong to them.
James Garfield did not die of a broken heart, either. His Ohio constituents returned him to Congress three more times, and then the people of America elected him President, which might be an indication that Americans would sooner vote a rogue into its highest office than an honest man.



By the 1880s, railroad building in America had become the national get-rich-quick game. Promoters by the score leaped into the competition, building railroads helter-skelter across the face of the land. Few of them were planned to meet any transportation needs. They were built mainly for purposes of financial exploitation, not for the people of the nation, who ultimately paid for them over and over again, through economic depressions and wars, thus perpetuating the most absurd railway system in the world.



The spiritual life of Plains Indians were based upon the buffalo. That animal, which numbered in the millions, supplied not only the basic food, shelter, and clothing needs of the tribes, it was also a folk hero and a religious symbol. Without the buffalo, the entire civilization of the Plains Indians would collapse. In the years following the Gold Rush of 1849, the tribes had seen the buffalo pushed both north and south of the white man’s westward trails, and in the 1860s they had seen the railroads across the Central Plains bring devastation to once-great herds.

Scandinavia: A History by Ewan Butler

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS

Scandinavia: A History by Ewan Butler

Excellence in writing, this overview of Scandinavian history delivers an enlightening look at these unique humanitarian people.
After reading countless books covering Scandinavia I found this publication the most illuminating.



Excerpts;
Norsemen, is simply an alternative name for these marauders, again applied to all three Scandinavian peoples. Normandy, settled by the Danes in 911, reminds us of the Norse origins of that duchy and to this day Norwegians refer to themselves as Nordmenn. (The Norse invaders of Russia are alternately known as Varangians, derived from an old Norse word, possibly meaning “confederate,” and Ruotsi, meaning the “rowing men” in old Finnish.)



The Vikings were democrats, in a sense. Great fleets of hundreds of longships were assembled for a large expedition without any single leader being in charge of the operation. “We are all equals,” said the Norsemen proudly to the envoy of the king of France who came to Normandy inquiring for their leader, and there was some truth in this. Women were held in highest esteem by the Vikings and enjoyed rights of property and status which their sex was not to enjoy elsewhere until many centuries later.



Frederick had abolished almost all vestiges of serfdom (the Stavnsbaand was repealed in 1788) and established a credit bank to enable the newly freed peasants to buy their land. A free trade tariff act and a banking reorganization plan were instituted as liberal spurs to the growth of Denmark’s economy. Laws were passed to provide for the welfare of paupers, and Denmark denounced both the owning and trading of slaves, the first European country to take this enlightened step.



The countries of Scandinavia are humanitarian, with laws for the protection of workers, mothers, children, and old people. Few people in Scandinavia are extremely rich and none extremely poor. Class warfare and strikes are uncommon, thanks to enlightened labor relations. A minimum of seven years of education is standardized and compulsory for all, and advanced training equivalent to high school, college, and vocational schools is also provided free.

Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS FOR SCOTT JUREK
Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness by Scott Jurek, Steven Friedman

Focused determination and applied resoluteness with an open mind made Scott a self made champion.
I loved this young man’s autobiographical story. Focusing his mental and physical attributes to the fullest, he excelled exceptionally.

Excerpts from Eat and Run:
On the extremely rare occasions I’ve diverged from plant-based foods, it’s always been a matter of survival, never because I craved animal products or felt incomplete without them.



Winning felt great. Kicking ass, especially the asses of so many who had said I was doomed, was a sensation that all but the most spiritually evolved or brain-fried would enjoy. I had set a goal and achieved it. I had pushed myself to what I thought were the outer limits of my capabilities and then pushed farther on a vegan diet. Being crowned a champion was good for both my mind and my soul. But it wasn’t enough.

The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World by Tera Zahra

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS


The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World by Tera Zahra

This book delivers a timely message of our status and relationship to all inhabitants of this planet.
This book is a wake up call and eye opening message to this world that selfishly grabs everything in sight with a me and my attitude of winner take all, might is right, and where it is far better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent.

Worthy of more than five stars.

Excerpts from The Great Departure:
Countries that experienced mass emigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Mexico and China, also aimed to protect and support emigrants overseas rather than prohibit emigration.

In 1945, after all, Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill had agreed to Stalin’s demands for the forcible repatriation of Soviet citizens, leading to tragic scenes. In Dachau on January 19, 1946, at the site of the former Nazi concentration camp, American troops had to use tear gas to force Soviet POWs from their barracks. After being thrust outdoors, the soldiers fell to the snow and pleaded with their captors to shoot them rather than send them home. Ten POWs succeeded in killing themselves, and twenty-one were injured before the group was turned over to Soviet authorities for repatriation.

In the United States, meanwhile, it is perhaps not coincidental that Donald Trump is married to the Slovene immigrant Melania Trump. His first wife, Ivana, was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia. Four of his five children have immigrant mothers. But for Trump (and his supporters), there is no contradiction in aspiring to make a Central European immigrant the first lady while promising to put a “total stop” to Muslim immigration to the United States and build a wall on the Mexican border.

The Whalemen by Edouard A. Stackpole

BOOK REVIEW
FIVE STARS
The Whalemen by Edouard A. Stackpole

Like the buffalo and passenger pigeon, the whale was unrelentingly hunted. This epic story spans the epoch beginning before the Industrial Revolution to the end of the age of sailing ships. America rode the wave of this heroic adventure story from its Revolutionary War of independence up to it’s ruinous Civil War. The end of whaling was abrupt.

Excerpts from The Whaleman:
Beginning with colonists in flimsy open boats, the industry expanded as enterprising Americans sent ships to every corner of the world, adding to their new country’s wealth and enlarging their knowledge of its geography. Born before the steam engine, the whaling business thrived for more than three centuries, dependent only upon the strength and courage of the brave souls who manned the ships.



In 1857 - New Bedford’s greatest whaling year - 10,000 men were making their living on New Bedford’s 329 sailing vessels, bringing in oil and bone worth $6,178,728 (more than $165 million today).



In the late 1800s, as the use of petroleum and natural gas accelerated, the world no longer needed whale oil for its lamps. Additionally, the need for whalebone to make women’s corsets disappeared with the invention of celluloid.

American Heritage History of Mexico by Parkes, Henry Bamford

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS
American Heritage History of Mexico by Henry Bamford Parkes

Peaceful places have no history, and Mexico has more than its share.
I loved this well-edited overview that covered the five hundred plus years from the first Spanish Conquest to the election of Cardenas that followed the first peaceful revolution in Mexican history.

Excerpts from American Heritage History of Mexico:

Bitter racial warfare still raged in Yucatan, reducing by half the population of the peninsula. And meanwhile, politicians and journalists in the United States, intoxicated by Manifest Destiny, were asking more and more vehemently why their country did not do its duty by carrying the benefits of Anglo-Saxon civilization as far as the borders of Guatemala.
There was only one Mexican who had the energy and the prestige necessary in a dictator; Santa Anna, who acquired the nimbus of a national hero whenever he disappeared across the Caribbean, was still the indispensable chieftain of any political combination. In spite of Santa Anna’s thirty-year career of trickery and corruption.
He was willing, however, to again sacrifice himself for the good of his country. On April 1, he landed at Vera Cruz, where he was welcomed by the familiar mob of generals, office-hunters, and agiotistas; and after attending banquets and bullfights and listening to his own praises from innumerable orators, he proceeded slowly to the capital, where he was formally proclaimed president on April 20. By no efforts of his own, he had been granted powers such as no Mexican had ever enjoyed before.

While there was some increase in fruits, vegetables, and commercial crops, there was actually a decline in corn and other basic foodstuffs. Under Cardenas and Avila Camacho, as under Di­az, despite the employment of two-thirds of the population in agriculture, Mexico continued to import food.

Gold Run: The Rescue of Norway’s Gold Bullion from the Nazis

BOOK REVIEW...FIVE STARS

Gold Run: The Rescue of Norway’s Gold Bullion from the Nazis, 1940 by Robert Pearson.

Neutral Norway would be the second of thirteen countries to be overrun by the Nazis in WWII.
I loved the book that revealed many of the stories of the resistance movement that my family was a part of starting with the first shot fired. The complexities were numerous, and the Germans had no problem enlisting Norwegians to do their bidding.

Excerpts for Gold Run:

April 8th 1940 that Blacher, Latzow, Emden, Albatros, and Kondor raised anchor and sailed north; with torpedo boats, joining the convoy. Their destination: neutral Norway.


Our troops can and will successfully be transported to Norway. On many occasions in the history of war those very operations have been successful which went against all the principles of warfare, provided they were carried out by surprise. The critical moment is the penetration of the harbors while passing the coastal fortifications. It is expected that this will succeed if carried out by surprise, and that the Norwegians will not make the decision to fire quickly enough, if they decide to do so at all. Report of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy to the Fuhrer, 9 March 1940. Any attempt to check or hinder the advance of our forces must be repulsed. Resistance is to be broken ruthlessly in accordance with the directives in the operational orders.



“We were talking about what would happen in Norway before the war was over, and it was almost uncanny how Lars Evensen proved to be correct. He said “and named dissidents in the Labor Party who would step forward and offer their services to the Nazis.” I cannot remember names, but his forecast was accurate.

Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild by Lee Sandlin

Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild by Lee Sandlin
FIVE STARS

American history as it unfolded and intertwined with the great nation that it formulated: the good, the bad, and the merciless expansionists who exploited everything and everyone in sight. I found this historical publication a wondrous look at the often forgotten trials and tribulations that evolved on the pathway to the United States of America that we know today.
Excerpts:
By the middle of the nineteenth century, it had taken on another aspect. The eastern half of the continent was largely colonized by then; the western half was still mostly unexplored. (The prairie and the plains were known as the Great American Desert, a desert more in the sense of deserted than of arid land.) The Mississippi had come to be the natural boundary line between the two. There were no bridges anywhere along its length; a crossing to the far side had something epic about it, a venture from civilization into the unknown. A trip up or down the river, even in imagination, was as exhilarating as a voyage along the edge of the world.


Migration began with the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, and it became a major phenomenon after the War of 1812. The old America, one traveler wrote in 1816, seems to be breaking up and flowing westward. The scale of the movement was hard for people to comprehend. At the beginning of the century, there may have been a couple of hundred thousand people scattered along the length of the Mississippi; by the time of the Civil War, there were tens of millions.


The wild west:
Excessive propriety didn’t really become the dominant mode in the river valley until around the time of the Civil War. Before then, immorality (by the rest of America’s standards) was taken for granted. Prostitution was so common as practically to be the fundamental structural element of society. In fact, no clear line was drawn between it and marriage. In many of the logging and mining towns, the ratio of men to women was twenty to one; a woman who wanted to establish her respectability, and yet still retain her income, would arrange to marry several of her regular clients simultaneously. After the wedding ceremonies were over, she would spend nights with each of her husbands on a prearranged schedule, or else would live with them all communally. Prostitutes were considered in some army garrisons to be essential military personnel: they lived full-time in the barracks, and were listed on the payroll as seamstresses or laundresses, or sometimes were recorded as officers’ wives. The opulent brothels of St. Louis and New Orleans were famous tourist destinations; they advertised openly in newspapers, they held fundraisers with the most celebrated local politicians in attendance, and the local churches only objected to them when they scheduled fancy costume balls on the Sabbath.

FIVE STARS


Also read George Catlin, famous for his books on the Missouri Territory and the Plains Indians. (His Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians)