Gumption (11 page)

As will often happen with me, an interesting train of thought will bring to mind a Tom Waits song, and “Day After Tomorrow” is one of his best ever (cowritten with his bride, Kathleen Brennan).

You can’t deny

The other side

Don’t wanna die

Any more than we do.

What I’m tryin’ to say,

Is don’t they pray

To the same God that we do?

Tell me, how does God choose?

Whose prayers does he refuse?

Sure, we and our allies have succeeded (so far) in keeping the specters of fascism and communism from overtaking the globe, but there are some extremists in the Middle East these days who are doing things in a way that’s awfully hard to stomach. I think we have to examine how at least some of their hatred is fueled by a nation (us) that has succeeded in remaining the reigning bully on the playground for many, many decades. What do our methods amount to, exactly? Have we taken their lunch money one too many times? One hundred too
many times? I can’t answer that. I am literally just a handsomely paid wiseass, but I do think it’s a question worth asking. Would Theodore Roosevelt, the man who said, “The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency,” approve of our casual “policing” wars? Hard to say, but given his stance on the amount of corporate influence governing the “conflicts,” I think no.

All in all, the more I read about Roosevelt, the more human he seems, however inspirational. Whether I agree with all the strong opinions he held, I can certainly refuel my own well of gumption with the example he set in a life packed to the gills with adventure. If I could go back in time and help out with his final bid for president, I would have suggested the campaign slogan “Bull Moose: Balls Deep.” I do believe we could have left Mr. Taft crying in his fat soup.

In the final reckoning, I will always be grateful to Colonel Roosevelt for providing us with this instructional sentiment, which grows more poignant with every passing day: “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

S
o far, it’s likely that my featured luminaries have been relatively recognizable to you. Although if you’re anything like me, many of the details seem to have a hard time sticking, unless you happen to be a student of American history. One reason for this apparent glitch is the seemingly illogical, age-specific pattern of prioritization that our brains employ. Like, for example, the fact that I can still repeat from memory several phone numbers from my youth, not to mention the entirety of the rap song “Jam on It” by Newcleus, but now in my forties, it’s all I can do to repeat the finer points of a novel I just finished reading. In the parlance of this computer-style age, it would be nice to be able to “empty the trash” and make room for new files, as delicious as that rap song may be. (
Wikki-wikki-wikki-wikki
.)

Consider Herbert A. Simon, a right sharp scientific thinker, who did his thinking most frequently at Carnegie Mellon, by which I mean this chap was smart as shit. Check out some of his smart-thinks: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information
consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. Slogan-worthy.

Oh, and by the way, ol’ Herbert blew that particularly salient jazz in 1971. Prescient as he may have been, he could have had
no idea
what the phrase “overabundance of information” would come to mean in 2015. I feel that I am in a constant battle with the media channels of the world, which are incessantly trying to penetrate the inner sanctum of my focus, because if I switch on even one channel, be it TV, radio, or Internet, I am immediately exposed to the distracting jingles and tits of advertising and corporate agendas. I can immediately feel my focus begin to erode. This constant, inexorable bamboozle, I believe, is also partially responsible for the paucity of attention that I am able to devote to any given subject.

My copy of
Huckleberry Finn
may weigh more than a Kindle, but if I am reading it under a tree in Minnesota, I am in zero danger of any pop-up ads or other apps appropriating my focus. I am also unable to order any shoes online whilst in the middle of my story, perhaps digesting Huck’s perfect rationale for pleasure boating: “Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.” And here’s the thing: If I traveled all the way to the woods of Minnesota and I don’t already have upon my feet all the shoes I need, then I’m a fool.

I digress. I wanted to crow to you about Frederick Law Olmsted,
architect of Manhattan’s Central Park, and I was going to presume that you are less familiar with him than with George Washington. Here we go! Please wring the appropriate enthusiasm from these exclamatory sentences!

When I was thirty, Megan and I were visiting New York City, and for the first time I had the opportunity to leisurely stroll through Central Park and really experience the delights of its bridges and glades and ponds and forests. It had existed for years in my imagination, rather as a legend shaped by films and books, like every Woody Allen movie,
Ghostbusters
, and
Hair.
Much like in the difference between any real sunset and the photo in which you tried and failed to capture even half of its grandeur, the experience of the park in real life was frankly astonishing.

As luck would have it, while later pillaging a bookstore near Lincoln Center, I happened upon a new volume from Witold Rybczynski, entitled
A Clearing in the Distance
, which encapsulates the working life of the man known for having designed Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted. “Good Christ!,” I merrily blasphemed. “This is just about all right!” I became enthralled with Olmsted’s story, and not just because he wore a fulsome beard and dressed like a bucolic patrician whom one might encounter sipping beer at the Prancing Pony. (Rybczynski’s book was so engaging that I embarked upon a run of some of his other excellent works, such as
Home
,
The Most Beautiful House in the World
, and
One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw.
These excellent volumes are in the nonfictional vein of some other writers I would recommend, such as Bill Bryson, Elizabeth Royte, John McPhee, and Mark Kurlansky.)

Olmsted’s life story was splendidly rich and full of surprising tangents, considering that the singular accomplishment of building Central Park would strike me as plenty to get done in a productive lifetime. Once I decided to write about the man, I was lucky enough to spend a day touring Central Park with some experts: park historian Sara Cedar Miller, senior landscape architect Steve Bopp, and director of preservation planning Marie Warsh, all leading members of the Central Park Conservancy. As we canvassed the park’s 843 acres, my three guides were able to point out fascinating bits of history as well as new developments in landscaping, park upkeep, and restoration projects like the Obelisk. I was quite impressed by the passion these three invested in their work; they truly seemed to be in love with the park.

As just one example of the myriad treasures housed in Central Park, the sixty-nine-foot, 220-ton Obelisk, aka Cleopatra’s Needle, is the oldest man-made object in Central Park and the oldest outdoor monument in New York City. It dates from 1450 BC and was made erect in the park on January 22, 1881. Yes, like a boner.

A time capsule buried beneath the Obelisk contained an 1870 US census, the Bible, Webster’s Dictionary, the complete works of Shakespeare, a guide to Egypt, and a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence; a haul of which I think Wendell Berry (chapter 9) would approve. Also, a small box was placed in the capsule by the man who orchestrated the purchase and transportation of the Obelisk. Obviously a Freemason, he will probably remain the only person in history ever to know its contents. That is, until I unearth the capsule in the climax of my upcoming Nic Cage film
National Treasure 23: Immanentizing the Eschaton.

I should mention, without further preamble, that Frederick Law Olmsted was actually only one half of the design team working on the park. His estimable partner, Calvert Vaux, really gets the short end of the stick when it comes to being credited for their gorgeous collaboration, a fact made quite clear to me by Sara Cedar Miller. Fans of Vaux are quick to point out, with little humor, that we have him to thank for many of the pastoral masterpieces within the grounds of the park, but his name is rarely mentioned when Central Park comes up in conversation. Given the expertise of my triumvirate hosts, and the meticulous work being performed day in and day out by the conservancy, I was in no position to argue. Let it be known, therefore, that Calvert Vaux, an incredible architect and artist, got the shaft.

Let’s get back to Olmsted, whom I was to learn was responsible for so much more beauty on this continent than Central Park. In fact, he (they) created Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which he (they) considered his (their) masterpiece,
during
the construction of Central Park. His park designs were amazing, and they continue to enthrall the public today, but Frederick Law Olmsted’s path took some interesting turns before he arrived at those opportunities.

As a boy in the 1820s and ’30s, he attended a boarding school in Connecticut that was operated on a model that I think could truly benefit the youth of today: The students would spend the day chopping firewood, hauling firewood, tending the fires, and otherwise maintaining the school buildings and surrounding farm grounds, and only then when the chores were done would they participate in classes in the evening. This sounds to me like the perfect school for churning out great Americans, for besides arithmetic and spelling,
the pupils were being taught character and the value of a work ethic. Put it all together, and what do you get? A Frederick Law Olmsted. I think this brand of matriculation must have been especially effective for Olmsted, since he described himself thusly: “I was very active, imaginative, inventive, impulsive, enterprising, trustful and heedless. This made what is generally called a troublesome and mischievous boy.”

How’s this for gumption? Young Frederick threw his plans to attend Yale out the window when he suffered the effects of sumac poisoning about his eyes, weakening his vision to the point that he decided not to trouble his blighted orbs with collegiate studies. Where does one encounter poison sumac? In the woods, of course. The moral of this story: If you spend enough time in the woods, you won’t have to go to college.

He tried his luck working in a silk shop, to no avail. He despised the twelve-hour days, six days a week, but the shop was near the harbor, where he caught the bug to be up in the crow’s nest, giving the sailor’s life a try. At an apprentice sailor’s paltry wage of five dollars a month, he could not have been more miserable sailing to China, thanks to seasickness, hunger, and thirst. Life on the high seas quickly lost its allure, and he determined to take a swing at a vocation decidedly more earthbound.

With his father’s help, he acquired a farm, first in Connecticut, then at a second spot on Staten Island, where he became obsessed with scientific agriculture, curiously exploring new avenues of horticulture and animal husbandry. A new breed of journal aimed at these new “scientific” farmers who could read (unlike traditional farmers) were like a
nineteenth-century Internet chat room for inventive agrarians. Poring over the periodicals, constantly attempting new crops, sustained by new and experimental fertilizers and methods, Olmsted began to write letters to these magazines, like
The Cultivator
and
The Horticulturist
, literally digging into his newfound vocation as a commercial farmer. He experimented with seaweed as a fertilizer. When New York City’s market saw an overabundance of peaches, he switched to pears. He wrote to a friend, “For the matter of happiness, there is no body of men that are half as well satisfied with their business as our farmers.”

While he was cheerfully embroiled in his farming efforts, an obscure Scottish novel came through Olmsted’s lively rotation of titles:
Sartor Resartus.
The story concerned a German philosopher with a dissolute youth (which resonated with Olmsted) who was unable to achieve a sense of blind religious faith (ditto). According to biographer Justin Martin, the philosopher’s ultimate conclusion was something like “All is chaos, and one’s only option is to construct meaning as best as possible, through work. And not just any kind of work, but rather work that has helping others as its stated goal.” This philosophy struck a chord with Olmsted, one that would eventually lead him to find his true calling as the father of American landscape architecture.

Despite his valiant efforts, Olmsted’s farm could not be made to satisfactorily bear fruit, as it were, so he ultimately gave it up. His ever-supportive father then sent him on a walking tour of England at the tender age of twenty-eight. Young Frederick was constantly reading and keeping notes of his life’s endeavors, and this British ramble proved no exception. He kept a detailed journal of British farming
innovations, as well as the beauty of the countryside and some lovely parks, Birkenhead Park in particular. He noted, “What artist, so noble . . . with far-reaching conception of beauty and designing power, sketches the outline, writes the colors, and directs the shadows of a picture so great that Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.” Enjoying his parks, I have often had precisely the same admiration for the artistic foresight of Olmsted himself, albeit with somewhat less eloquence: “Man, he sure thought this up dope. This park is slick as shit.”

By the time he was thirty he had published
Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England
, adding “author” to the growing list of trades of which he was a jack. Although it was considered a rather slapdash work, the book contained enough observations to fill some seven hundred pages, signifying an appetite for language and an apparently tireless writing hand. This penchant for hard work, along with his interest in the slave economy, led to an interview with
The New York Times.
The
Times
wanted him to tour the Southern American states for some months and report on the true state of slavery, a hot issue of the day that sparked a great deal of opinion in the North, but opinion backed up by little tangible knowledge of the actual state of affairs in the slave economy—knowledge that Olmsted was hired to glean.

If, at first, Olmsted’s qualifications seemed lacking for such an assignment, the perceptiveness of his selection by the
Times
soon shone through. He had been a farmer, and he had written a detailed report of English farming and her countryside whilst carefully touring
the country. This new assignment wanted to be a very similar feature article, with the addition of a particular focus on slavery. Olmsted took to it like a tabloid to celebrity cellulite and managed to interview several slave owners who had also experienced running farms in the North. This farmer-to-farmer discourse allowed our intrepid reporter to deftly run the numbers involved in the efficiency of farm productivity with and without the use of slavery. His findings were quite elucidating, showing conclusively that a slave accomplished about half the work a Staten Island hired hand could achieve.