What's New in Old News?
The Official Newsletter of the Peripatetic Historian. June 2022, Vol. 2, no. 6.
Above the Fold
“Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying”
May 24, 2022. A dank fog obscured the Spokane sunrise, but, by 8:30, the sun burned through and lit the green lawn outside the condominium we have occupied for nearly four years.
An hour later, we arrived at a local title company, and affixed our signatures to the many sheets of paper that are required to transfer real estate. Finally, as my ink pen’s reservoir began to resemble Nevada’s Lake Mead, the paperwork flow dribbled off.
Our part completed, we strolled through the Spokane morning knowing that in forty-eight hours we would officially be homeless.
Or, as I like to say, “peripatetic.”
You will have recognized the quotation in the subtitle hanging above this piece. They are the immortal words of Shawshank Redemption’s Ellis “Red” Redding as he makes a momentous decision about his post-prison life. Will he cling to the little security his situation offers, or will he gamble—spin life’s roulette wheel and reach for something larger, something that his heart would deem worthy of the time that remains to him.
Mary and I faced a similar choice. It would have been far too easy and comfortable to continue teaching at Gonzaga, deferring our dreams one year at a time. Alternatively, we could have settled for a less-challenging dream: buying a house on the Oregon Coast and opening a shitake mushroom farm.
Instead, as loyal readers know, we are heading to Ramallah, Palestine. I hope that this will be the first leg in a multi-country, multi-year exploration of the world. The Peripatetic Historian is unleashed, and he does not intend to return easily to a comfortable crate.
Plans, Prayers, and Promises
So what does this all mean for you, the reader of What’s New in Old News? What can you expect to find here in the coming months?
Books
Still writing them. The composition of non-fiction history books for the general (as opposed to the academic) reader will command most of my attention. Comet Madness went into production at the end of May and is still scheduled for a February 2023 release. You will be reading more about that epic in the coming months.
Another book—currently untitled—took off three weeks ago and currently fills the morning slice of my writing schedule. I shall have more to say about the successor to Comet Madness when the time arrives.
Historic Travel
Mary and I are now homeless and officially on the road. June will find us exploring Canada’s Vancouver Island for a new series that I have tentatively dubbed From Tip to Toe. Expect news articles from the Great Green North as we partake of the delights of our northern neighbor.
After six weeks in the land of Tuques, Poutine, and (hopefully) a Canadian Oyster Burger or two, we shall travel south to the Oregon coast. Then, with our travel muscles stretched and limber, we are off to Ramallah.
The Peripatetic Historian on YouTube
Books and articles are certain. A YouTube channel about the adventures of the Peripatetic Historian travels falls under the category of “aspirational.” The few videos I have filmed in the past entailed a surprising amount of work. I would like to add a video component to these adventures, but books and articles will remain my top priority. If I can squeeze in regular video features, you will find them on my newly-minted Peripatetic Historian YouTube channel.
And if CNN or the BBC would like to discuss a historic travel series, my bags are packed and I am ready to roll.
The Fold
What exactly is a “Historic Travel” article? Here’s a sample from the archives:
Is This the World’s Oldest Shopping Mall?
Dodging rug Vendors in Istanbul
A new August morning arrives, blissfully, with a thin layer of clouds overhead. Perhaps this will put a damper on the day’s temperature. Given time I’m certain that my body would adapt to Istanbul’s climate, but right now I am still perspiring buckets of sweat every time I step out our front door. I will gladly embrace a little shade from a cloud layer.
Today we are off to do a little shopping: a visit to Kapalicarsi (the Grand Bazaar). The Grand Bazaar is a monstrous edifice located about a mile east of our flat. It is one of the largest covered markets in the world, housing more than 6,000 shops. Sixty streets wind beneath the vaulted roofs. It is labyrinthine — unwitting visitors have wandered in and never returned. I would not be surprised if the Minotaur lurked in the Bazaar’s murky depths.
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Continuing Series
Via Romea Germanica XVI: Primolano, Italy to Cismon del Grappa
Mad bicyclists on a narrow path through the mountains
We spent the night at a friendly, albeit quirky, hotel in Primolano. The town offered few diversions. We walked across the road before dinner and took a tour of the train station. It was a small, but cheerful station. It had a platform and a machine to validate one’s ticket, should one choose to take a train to either Trento or Bassano del Grappa.
Having seen the highlight of the town, we spent some time sitting in front of the hotel, watching the occasional car drive up the road to the roundabout and then — anticipation builds — either continue on the road toward Pianello, or take a full spin around the roundabout and head back toward its point of origin. How many hours have I spent dreaming of a time to come when I will while away the hours, sitting at a table in front of an European hotel, nursing a glass of wine and watching the world pass by?
I was living the dream.
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The Oyster Burger Chronicles XVI
Billy’s Restaurant, Aberdeen, WA
Returning to Grays Harbor, Washington always makes me happy. I spent eight blissful years living beside the green sloughs and muddy salt marshes. I soaked up the eighty-plus inches of annual rainfall, and felt the cool Pacific wind on my face.
It feels like home. It is also strategically placed just north of Willapa Bay—oyster Mecca.
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Exit Music
We left Spokane Saturday, May 28. I perched jauntily behind the wheel of a U-Haul truck, half-filled with the few possessions we cannot yet bear to unload. We consigned these to a storage locker in southwestern Washington, and then spent the Memorial Day weekend with our family.
Now the time has come to peripatate.
Hmm. The online dictionaries don’t seem to recognize the obvious infinitive form of “peripatetic.” I dug a little deeper and evidently, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the correct word is “peripateticate.” It is a rare word; the OED offered only a single usage example, from a letter written by R. Southey in 1793: “I am here and there and every where…now peripateticating to Cambridge, and now an equestrian in the land of cyder.”
How fitting. We are here, there, and everywhere—peripateticating madly.
See you next month from the Great Green North.
Be safe, be sensible,