The Hooverville Hexagon: Lifestyles and Monumental Stuff

 

Paigetheoracle has been to Culloden Moor. He and the Editor bicker converse intelligently about whether people want to see the 'boring' landscape, or the highly informative plaques.

First the Argument…

Paigetheoracle: Jacobite forces in blue. Government troops in red (subtle hint at Butcher Cumberland or just red to indicate actual colour of jackets worn?) 

DG: Thanks for this, but...next time you're there? Stop photographing the infographics! What everybody wants to see is the landscape. What it looks like.

We can find the information online, but we can't see the hills, the trees, the rivers...See what I mean? Not so interested in inscriptions, either - same reason.

So, less signage: more hills and heather. Heck, even: I saw this worm at the Battle of Culloden...telling details. 

PTO: It's a flat piece of ground. Absolutely nothing to see. Yes, there are hills in the distance and trees (forest, artificial that would not necessarily have been there when all this happened and most of it is forestry commission land, which means pine trees in rows). Nothing to see here. 

DG: Ah, but we could have seen that for ourselves. And it beats looking at plaques.

Nobody wants to read plaques.

 

Lifestyle Upgrade

by DG

Paige's trip to Culloden Moor did tell me something about my ancestors. Sort of.

 

Do you see this photo? It's the best one he took.

 

It made me thoughtful. I speculated on the reasons why my ancestors, some of whom originated in Scotland, never thatched their roofs. Wood? Yes. Homemade shingles? Definitely. Corrugated tin? Absolutely. But no thatching going on.

 

I tried to see if I could find a folkways journal article about it; as usual, the nebby* AI interfered:

 

Settlers in the Appalachian Mountains did not build thatched houses because the region offered an immense, immediate abundance of timber for log cabins and split-shingle roofs. Thatching required specialized craft labor and cereal straw that was more valuable as livestock feed, whereas the densely forested mountains made wood the fastest, most practical building material.

 

The Google Chattybot got this off History.com. Fair enough: it listed the fact that straw-thatching was a specialty skill (my people have always been generalists), that straw was more valuable for animal fodder, that it was harder to come by than wood in the enormous half-a-continent's-worth of forest they found themselves in, and. . . finally, the first thing I thought of: critters.

 

You see, the second I looked at that roof, I thought about waking up in the attic room one summer morning – as I had so many times as a kid at my grandparents'. You open your eyes. Look straight up. And staring back at you, hanging from a rafter, is…

 

…a snake. Or a very big spider. Or possibly a curious possum. Better to leave the outdoor vegetation…outdoors. Anyway, here is an architectural study of the environs where my dad's people come from. You can see mountains. The landscape is not boring. If you are tired of mountains, you are tired of Earth.

 

*nebby: (Geordie, Western Pennsylvania, Scotland) Overly inquiring; nosey. (Wiktionary)

Back to the Battle of Culloden

 (Video)

Here are some photos Paige took of the battlefield memorial. For those who don't know, the battle was between the Jacobites – supporters of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, claimant to the British throne – and what the plaques call simply 'the government', which was the army of the reigning monarch, who was some kind of cousin and spoke German. Oh, and all this took place in April of 1745.

The Jacobites lost. Folksingers have never shut up about it.

 

 

The Best Memorial

At Culloden

 There are inscriptions remembering the leaders of the various Scottish clans represented at the Battle of Culloden. This is hands-down the best one.

(Read the motto.)

 

Before We Forget:

The Informational Plaque

by Paigetheoracle

Be sure to tell us if you like informational plaques. We'll keep them coming.

And, as always, we thank Paigetheoracle for sharing his view of his neighbourhood. Even if that view is largely directed at a 3-foot elevation. 

 

A View of Actual Mountains from the

Loch Ness Boat

by Galaxy Babe,

who never finds landscape boring.

 Tìoraidh an-dràsta,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor