Musings

Lost a good friend this Spring.  Besides our long friendship, I worked with Ginger Maddox in historic preservation issues in my old F Q Story neighborhood, and then recruited her to join our association board; I served with her until her unexpected passing.  Here’s a brief eulogy I delivered at a memorial service at the Franklin Police and Fire Academy, a first responders focused high school in our neighborhood, with which Ginger fostered our relationship:

Remembering Ginger

About noon on Friday, September 19, 2014, the FAA “permanently” redirected most of Sky Harbor’s western takeoffs (meaning most afternoon and evening departures) from over the Salt River floodplain (the route for decades), to a route over downtown Phoenix and out along Grand Avenue, creating severe noise, vibration and pollution issues over our historic neighborhoods, and most directly over Story.  Sky Harbor, the City and our historic neighborhoods had been blindsided.

Within 24 hours, longtime Story neighbors Ginger Mattox and Steve Dreiseszun were leading what became a 4 year-long effort by the Story, Roosevelt, Willow, Encanto/Palmcroft neighborhoods and others , to reverse that move. By Sunday, Ginger was already diving into Federal regulations, and picking the brains at Phoenix’s Historic Preservation office, for actionable steps.

Ginger researched regulations, legal cases, impact studies; located and collaborated with groups around the country that had dealt with similar issues; helped orchestrate town meetings, media coverage and City Council testimony; coordinated with various City and Sky Harbor offices; collected testimony from folks who had been injured by the overflights; and eventually, when persuasion failed, gathered data and testimony for our DC Circuit Court lawsuit against the FAA.  Thanks to efforts of Ginger and many others, and wonderful work by Terry Goddard’s law firm, our little neighborhoods beat the FAA – the only defeat in a similar case the FAA had suffered in some decades.

I’m not sure when Ginger got any sleep, those years.

Ginger also headed our efforts to address odor, pollution and safety issues with the asphalt and petroleum firms along the 19^th Avenue rail yards, and the recycling operations along McDowell west of 19^th Avenue, both bordering and impacting Story. In these, she researched and mastered a mountain of technical and regulatory issues, but also found ways to collaborate with the firms, helping to make them ongoing good neighbors, rather than bad actors for us to fight.

In these and other areas – squatter and homeless issues, preserving our historic homes, traffic calming, State Fair and other event parking, our wonderful relationship with the Franklin School – Ginger brought a rare combination of deep research ability with the ability to collaborate; not just to find a compromise, but to get all “sides” working together to find a path that would benefit all.

Ginger’s kind does not come along often.  And I cannot think of anyone who contributed as much to our community, and to our lives. She will be missed.

Just caught Louise Perry’s excellent 5/23/2026 Wall Street Journal Op Ed “Falling Birthrates Are a Mystery”. The observation that ”…Everyone has an explanation that supports a pre-existing political position…” is provocative, as are the several explanations that are explored.

However, three potential explanations are omitted, two that are often mention and a third, rarely.

First – consider the decline in religious belief.  Beyond the oft mentioned correlation, society by society, of decline in belief and decline in births, it resonates that a lack of belief in an afterlife, and of any potential reward or punishment therein, would encourage a tendency to “party now – let the future care for itself”. There’s no good reason to endure the hardships of raising children if one has no thought for, and nothing owing to, the future.

Second – meditate on a combination of the lesser need to have children to work the farm and to support one in one’s old age, and the impact of better health.  Those farms that remain are largely mechanized, so children are no longer needed to work; Social Security and job pensions take on one’s old age support. Further, back when many children died of infection or poor sanitation, one needed more children to insure that a few remained.  Vaccination and clean water supplies have cut the number of children one needs that a few might survive.

Third – Not mentioned is the deleterious effect of the rising popularity of university education, at least in America and similar cultures.  Generations ago, kids married soon after high school, and quickly began producing children. They married someone met in high-school, church, or neighborhood – all local.  They (generally the husband) took a job locally; they continued to live locally.  Thus, a robust local support network was in place for early marriage “on a shoe string”, and for raising children.  Usually both sets of grandparents were present nearby (and young enough to be useful, as they had had their kids early), as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, and church and neighbor relationships going back years.  Not only was expensive childcare (mentioned in the article) not needed, but Grandma’s attic likely contained an old crib, a starter bicycle, toys, outgrown clothes. Further, folks were available to cook the occasional meal, walk the first-grader to school, loan a twenty, and much more.

When kids go away to college, they meet kids from across country, marry them, and cannot set up house near both extended families.  They delay marrying, and especially having kids, for the years of college, and often more years to establish themselves in the chosen profession (often in a city new to the both of them, and bereft of family and other support).  Following their example, many non-college bound kids are encouraged to delay having kids, so as to “explore themselves”, as well. The longer one delays having that first kid, the fewer kids one will have.

Over the centuries and across many cultures, we males (aka “the patriarchy”) have sold to gals a marvelously self serving narrative, perhaps best summarized in the saw “she had not the ambition or talent to forge a career; she’s just a housewife”.

Though details vary, most cultures organize labor sharing within the household by distinguishing the “breadwinner” from “the homemaker”. The breadwinner works aggressively to bring home sustenance; the homemaker, primarily, brings up the kids.

Which of the two is the more important, and the more difficult?

Through a variety of lenses, from survival of the species to survival of society, the homemaker is primary. A new generation needs be created and formed to itself form the following generation, without which both species and society vanish. The breadwinner, while important, is the supporting role, and also the less difficult. Few jobs are as complex, nor as unremitting, as successfully raising a kid, let alone several. Breadwinner flees the house each morning not so much to please his boss as to escape the screaming kids.

Should gals ever tumble to reality, they’ll speak of “she wasn’t up to being a housewife; she had to settle for a career instead”. And we males will no longer be allowed to reserve for ourselves the better paying, and more prestigious, careers.

In passing, there seems some reason for the traditional assigning of roles by gender. Offing the mammoth requires aggressiveness and some disregard for personal safety; forming the kids requires empathy. If the folks who advocate for more gals in the executive suite and in the legislature, because they possess a different skill set (empathy), are correct, the traditional rolls society assigns make some sense.

Back in 1988, when several friends and I founded the Salt River Brass Band (a British style brass band, based in Phoenix), we had no money, no appropriate instruments, no audience, no place to perform, and no experience in running such a thing. Just some armature musicians looking for a better opportunity to perform.  Others handled recruiting personnel and music; I was handed administration.

I tapped my firm’s graphics and layout fellow to do the same for the Band.  We couldn’t pay Karl, but the work over the years was not onerous: a posed group photo and numerous live shots during a concert sound check about once per year, and a bit of layout work – mostly for our season mailer and the outer shell of our printed programs.  We credited him on the printed material and on the website (he was setting up as a professional and fine art photographer, and needed the exposure). We comped his extended family and friends into whatever concerts he requested.

We used his artfully posed program cover photo for an occasional season poster and on our CDs; KONC Radio used one as the front cover of their monthly magazine profiling the Band. Similarly, when we performed for the Verde Valley Fine Arts Association, the local paper used Karl’s work for the front cover of their “What’s Happening” supplement.

Our home venue, Chandler Center for the Arts, housed an art gallery.  We secured for Karl a exhibit in the gallery, which subsequently placed a bit of his work in its permanent collection; our tuba/euphonium quartet played for the exhibition’s opening, providing a bit of exposure for the Band, and a bit of tone to the gallery and to Karl.  And complementary wine and cheese for the quartet.

Karl’s photography and layout work was exemplary; it presented the Band as professional and artistic.  We all benefited – Karl, the Band, our audience, the radio station, our various venues, and the Chandler Center.  All from connecting talented people.

Our flugal horn player, Jack Bannon, in my Salt River Brass Band, posted on Facebook:

The son (Phillip Barton Key II) of the man who penned the lyrics to our national anthem (Francis Scott Key) served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. He was shot and killed by Daniel Sickles (U.S. representative from NY) in Lafayette Square across from the White House because Keys was having a long-term affair with Sickles’ wife. It was the first successful use of the “temporary insanity” defense. The “trial of the century” back then and only put on the back burner by the civil war.

I could not but reply:

There’s much more to the backstory. Dan Sickles was a protégé of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist; the offending wife was Da Ponte’s granddaughter, whom Sickles met while boarding with, and being tutored by, Da Ponte, at the time Professor of Italian at what became Columbia. The affair with Key was payback for decades of Sickles’ philandering (he was rumored to have been keeping three New York City houses of ill repute afloat, almost single handed.)

Da Ponte grew up in Venice, where he invested much energy in philandering along side the storied Casanova; it reached such an exalted level that the Church in Venice expressed outrage (quite an achievement, that) and had Da Ponte exiled. Thence to Vienna, as librettist for the Italian Opera, where he wrote three of Mozart’s finest, including Don Giovanni, inspired by his drinking buddy Casanova. He shortly outraged Vienna as well, was banished, and spent some years writing for London’s theaters. Finished his career in New York, where he introduced opera to America, and became he first professor of Italian at Columbia.

And passed his Casanova gene, as it were, along to a young Dan Sickles.

Sickles, in turn, started a political career with Tammany Hall, was the point man for assembling the land which became Central Park, went to London with James Buchanan as the detail man for Buchanan’s embassy, engineered Buchanan’s nomination for the Presidency in 1856, as well as his own election to Congress. Had to resign his seat due to the murder scandal, but raised a regiment at the outset of the Civil War and emerged as Third Corps commander at Gettysburg. There, in violation of orders, he pushed his corps, on the army’s left flank, close to a mile in front of the rest of the line, uncovering Little Round Top and nearly losing the battle for the Union. Only reason he wasn’t cashiered was his loss of a leg in the battle (he needn’t have lost the leg; his corps surgeon said it could be saved, but Sickles insisted, and “dined out” on his war wound the rest of his life.)

Some years later, Sickles headed the commission that commissioned the bronze statuary on many Civil War battlefields; he seems to have embezzled some $20,000 to $30,000 from the fund, but skated again.  He ended his career as our ambassador to Spain, where he seduced the Queen Mother.

All in all, a full life.

One more twist to the Da Ponte/Casanova connection: It seems likely that Casanova penned a bit of the libretto he had inspired.  The Opera company was on the road, performing a Mozart opera, and anxious to rehearse for the impending premier of Don Giovanni, which Mozart was struggling to complete.  This would be the occasion when the opera cast locked Mozart in his hotel room until he finished.  Da Palma could not complete the libretto until Mozart finished the music; we therefore know when Da Ponte wrote.  We also know that Da Ponte was not in town that week.  But Casanova happened to be on hand.  And the original of the libretto has a bit that seems to be in Casanova’s handwriting.

An even further twist: Key (the anthem writer) preceded his son as District Attorney for Washington DC, during the first Jackson administration.  Jackson needed an attorney general; he asked Key (senior) for a recommendation.  Key recommended an in-law and fellow Maryland plantation and slave owner, one Roger Taney, who Jackson appointed, mostly because of his “solid” views on slavery.  In his second term, Jackson appointed his attorney general, Taney, to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Years later (just a bit after Sickles offed Key Jr.), Taney wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision.

And finally, the fellow who wrote “‘Twas the night Before Christmas” was the son of the fifth president of Columbia University.  He happened to run into Da Palma in a New York bookstore, was impressed, and introduced Da Palma to his father.  Which was Da Ponte’s foot in the door to the Columbia job.

Random examples of the benefits of nurturing a range of contacts and following up even weak leads, from my 17-plus years of managing our Salt River Brass Band, from its inception:

Some 18 months after our first rehearsal, when we were mostly doing concerts in various parks, I noticed an article on the upcoming opening of the fancy new Chandler Center or the Arts, seating some 1500.  Not thinking I’d get anywhere, I found a phone number for the hall and, to my surprise, found myself pitching the general manager on, could we ever play a brass band concert in his hall. More surprising, James called me a Godsend.  Seems a week long grand opening was  planned, with several high profile touring acts booked.  Unfortunately, construction ran several weeks over. No-one could re-schedule. And he had a deadline.

My start-up brass band was the Center’s grand opening.

We performed at the Chandler Center for another 18 years, doing a full six concert season and a free Forth of July, often to capacity crowds. We built audience alongside the new hall, always careful to price our tickets at the low end of the Center’s offerings, so as to pull new audience into the hall. We collaborated with the Center any way we could, providing free concerts when asked, smaller ensembles for fundraising events and art galley openings; the hall helped us with promotion, finding sponsors to cover hall costs (as for our free Forth of July concerts) and providing introductions.  I rather suspect James took me under his wing as something of a mentor; I was pretty green. To The Chandler center we owe much of the credit for our success.

Again, we joined the North American Brass Band Association at our inception, when we had barely a dollar to our name. ( As a matter of policy, we did not accept donations; we survived on ticket sales and contracted gigs – earned income only). We joined for the contacts, to be accessible to touring soloists or bandsmen moving into our area, and for a read on what other bands were doing.  Unexpectedly, I saw an ad the NABBA’s newsletter offering for sale (at a great price) the 2,000 piece music library of the Buffalo Silver Cornet Band, around since 1915 and, reputedly, the oldest brass band in the country. They in turn had bought the library of a 19th century band in the English Midlands.  We thus acquired wonderful music going back to the 1870s, much of it not available to any other band in the US. Wouldn’t have that music available without the NABBA membership.

Finally, listening to KONC, our then classical music radio station, I heard a broadcast of Gustav Holst’s “Mooreside Suite”. The Program Director, Sterling Beeaff, announced it as performed by the Dallas Wind Ensemble, with no other information provided.  On a whim, I called Sterling at the station and mentioned that he’s programmed an arrangement of a brass band piece, commissioned as a test for the 1928 British national brass band contest, and that I could find him a recording of the Holst in the original.  Conversation led to lunch; I donated a few brass band CDs to the station, got Sterling hooked on brass band music (much classical and operatic music has been transcribed for brass band), and we started to have brass band music programmed on our classical station, as well as Salt River Brass  performances regularly promoted. Sterling even broadcast interviews with our conductor and players.  All from a flyer of a phone call.

Talk to people.  Take a chance,  Get creative,  Reach out.

Recently, Katelyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist, who I enjoy and respect, published an article on declining birthrates in the US. She mentions several reasons for folks not having kids: lack of access to affordable healthcare, little support available for new parents (paid parental leave), the costs of childcare. She also mentions various financial incentives tried around the world, with mixed results.

She misses several elephants in the room:

In America, abortion claims  around one million children per year.  If we want more kids, we might consider not killing them before they’re even born.  Leaving out of our discussion abortions based on tests indicating serious handicaps in the child, we have two big issues: the costs of birth (neo natal, the birth itself, and early child health care can amount to well over $30,000 if one is not well insured) and, obviously, the costs and time commitment of raising that child. (These costs, obviously, discourage planned childbearing as well.)

We might address the birth related health costs by simply covering them all, making birth “free”. We cover a child’s education through at least high school, thinking that having well educated kids is important to society; might the same logic apply to birth expenses?

We might address the ongoing cost, in funds and effort, in raising the child by facilitation adoption. Adoption today can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and much time and aggravation.  How about cutting the red tape, and the cost of screening and backgrounding prospective adopters. I’ve not seen any indications that adoptive parents are any worse at the of than natural ones.  Make adoption easy and free.

Regarding childcare costs: Several generations ago, the grandparents bore much of that burden.  At a local lever, we could discourage “seniors only” communities, allow “mother-in-la specials to be built on the back of existing homes. Encourage, as a society, parents to live in the same town – better the same neighborhood – as one set or the other grandparents (or aunts, other family).  Where no family is available, allow neighbors to supply childcare, without state licensing. QA trusted neighbor is likely a better choice than a state licensed facility, staffed by lower paid employees there only for the income.

Doing whatever we can to get the grandparents (or great grandparents) involved in child rearing presents benefits to all concerned. We’d give grandparents a purpose in life, and I rather suspect that if one asked a grandparent, late in life, if he’d wishes he’d spent more time on the gold course or being with his grandkids, he’d choose the latter.

We have few children and we have them later in life than we once did. We ought encourage early marriage and child bearing.  Our needing more children is not solved by simply finding a way for every woman to have two kids; it’s also in facilitating some to have many children.  Several generations ago, Americans married early – often the girl just out of high school, the fellow a couple of years her senior.  With decent jobs available for a high school grad, and with apprenticeships available for most of the jobs for which we now require degrees, the fellow could often be financially secure enough to support wife and children (perhaps with a bit of help from the grand parents). Marrying one’s high school sweetheart would involve marrying a local (close to a neighbor).  If one marries and stays in the community, one has both sets of grandparents available to lean on. And, the earlier you start, the more kids might have.

Katelyn also mentions the high expense of fertility treatments, if needed.  The later in life one attempts to conceive, the more difficulties arise. Thus, best to start early. The current pattern of college degree, advanced degree, a few years to establish oneself in one’s field, leads to fewer children (if any) and fertility issues. Finally, if the mother cannot conceive, why not adopt.?  As a society, we ought to encourage adoption.

Marrying early, having hots of kids, involving grandparents, extended family and neighbors in raising the kids, having a tight community of multiple generations, is how we evolved, both genetically and socially.  Might be some wisdom in that.

Here’s a review I wrote for Karl Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotisms.

Hydraulic economies (Those based on huge water projects, either irrigation or flood control) require large corvees of labor, generally require autocrats to organize them, and morph into monumental constructions and armies. Farming tends to be high intensity and productive; peasants often have control over their own farming practices, but little else. Intensive agriculture allows very high productivity (per acre), so creates high populations. The state, originally managed (save in conquest situations) by the technical elite, demands total subservience. (Exceptions featuring cooperative, not forced, labor, and hence non-totalitarian societies are Venice, Salt Lake City and the Netherlands.)

Most land is rented or allocated by government or by (usually palace connected) landholders; peasant ownership occasionally occurs. Hydraulic Despotism would be a better title (and was the author’s original choice, but the publisher apparently thought “Oriental” would sell better): examples include Central America, the Pueblos, Spain under the Muslims, and Hawaii, in addition to the expected Egypt, India, the near east and China. Despotisms are often exported sans hydrology, as in Rome (via Sicily), Russia, the Byzantine Balkans.

Which leads me to a suggestion from elsewhere, that the US might well have emerged as a totalitarian state rather than as a liberal democracy had we been settled from west to east, rather than the reverse.  Much of the west requires large irrigation projects to support population; little of the east does.

We’ve seen concern of late regarding re-building America’s military, though little appreciation on the varied difficulties of doing so, quickly.

I joined my extended family on Thanksgiving at my little sister’s, up the road in Flagstaff.  Her husband, Jim, until recently co-owned a mini-storage facility, and thereby accumulated quite a trove of miscellany from abandoned units.  Knowing my interest in history, he graciously (maliciously?) presented me a 1920’s era Swedish army helmet – and a link to the history of its development and eventual production:

https://www.world-war-helmets.com/fiche/Casque-Suedois-Mle-21-High (might have to copy and paste)

Note the time needed, and the complexity, of designing and producing something as straightforward as a helmet.  Consider how long it might take us to, say, produce a reasonable number of frigates to fend off, say, China.

Might be a while, this military re-building.