Country Churches: Rock Run UMC

Harford County, Maryland, not far from Level.

Canon 20/30D Kim Choate/falmanac ©

Star-Spangled Banner Museum: A touch of American history

BALTIMORE (Examiner) - The most noticeable thing about Mary Pickersgill’s house in downtown Baltimore is the way it smells.
It is old and musty. The floors creak and the walls are cracking. The doors and windows look as if they have had hundreds of coats of paint — probably because they have.
Before the house was purchased by the City of Baltimore and opened as a public museum, it was home to a pharmacy, shoe repair shop and Italian grocery as well as Pickersgill’s flag-making business, said Jill Peters, a tour guide at The Flag House and Star-Spangled Banner Museum. Continued.

The uncouth are a mixed curse

Every so often somebody asks me what I'm thinking, and oftener than not, I'll answer with something like, "I was thinking about the Lend Lease Act." I think they think I'm being evasive, but the sad, or happy, fact is that I think about history a lot. So it was no surprise to me that while I was standing in the Guinston cemetery, I was thinking not about mortality, but about history, the history of the people scattered about me.
We know from the last entry on Guinston Presbyterian Church, that the Scots-Irish had been apportioned land west of the Susquehanna because the Quaker establishment felt that "their character and customs were so entirely different from the Quakers." In other words, they thought they were a pack of murderous rabble who'd best be placed on the frontier where they could act as a buffer against the Indians. And they were right, their only mistake, was not placing them far enough away; at least that seemed like the case when the Paxton Boys, a group of "rogue Presbyterians" marched on Philadelphia in 1764. On the other hand, when the Revolution came along (War of 1812 too), a whole lot of that rabble signed on to fight with George Washington. Or at least that's what it looks like, standing in an old graveyard in York County. It's just a thought, one I need to do some reading to verify.

"Benjamin Franklin and the Paxton Mob" (Wikipedia)
Top photos Canon 5D ©falmanac

Residents Turn Noses At Sludge Dumped In Park

(WBAL) HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. - People in one Harford County neighborhood are looking for answers as to why sewage sludge has been dumped in a state park near their homes. The state has insisted dumping sewage sludge is a practice that poses no threat.
But people living near the Susquehanna State Park in Havre de Grace are wondering why the law allows the material to be dumped in a state park. Continued.

Photo: Canon 30D ©falmanac

Darwin Awards? I'll take mine at church

This is definitely a case of the aesthetic sense overruling common sense. We were out taking pictures today when the thunderstorms started rolling in. Being commonsensical people, we started home. Except that the clouds were so interesting that I had to get a picture of something, anything. So we stopped off at Norrisville Methodist church, it being the first old building we passed, and took some pictures.

When I got home I found this in my email:

TORNADO WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

* AT 450 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WITH STRONG ROTATION 14 MILES NORTHEAST OF COCKEYSVILLE...MOVING SOUTHWEST AT 15 MPH.* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE... COCKEYSVILLE... NORRISVILLE...

Just about the same time we were there; not a smart move on my part. Fortunately the tornado never quite got its act together, but maybe next time, I'll actually switch that weather radio, that I keep in my car, on.

Anyway, the Norrisville Methodist Protestant Church, as it was original named, was built in 1885. It is in Norrisville, Maryland, near the school & right off Route 23.

Canon 30D

Goodbye full-frame, but not good riddance

Falmanc came into being out of a love of history and a love of photography. I don't talk about the photography aspect much; it's mostly a tool to showcase the great historical spots we come across, and besides, there's a zillion or more camera sites already out there. However, I like to blather on about hardware as much as the next guy, so here goes.

This past week, I sold my Canon 5D and bought a Canon 30D. By all accounts, the 5D is the better camera. It has a larger sensor, more pixels, and costs a whole lot more, so it must be better, right? To tell you the truth, the 5D is the better machine - for most applications, but it just wasn't for me. Here's some more good stuff about the 5D. It produces the best color I've ever seen from a camera. It's nice and heavy, not too heavy, but it feels substantial. You can crop the heck out of a shot and still have something viable left over.

Many people like the 5D because it's "full frame," the large sensor uses all of the lens. I found this feature to be underwhelming. The edges of a lens aren't all that great to begin with, and there's lots of vignetting and distortion issues to deal with. And then there's the dreaded DOF (Depth Of Field) imbroglio. Some say there's no difference in the DOF of full frame cameras and reduced (APS) frame cameras. It's quite a heated debate. I can't explain the science to you, but having owned both types of cameras, I can tell you this: full frame cameras have a shallower DOF than reduced frame cameras, at least as far as the Canon 5D & the Canon 20/30D go. This fact is almost entirely without consequence for most camera owners, unless you like shooting in low light, without a flash. And dislike background blur ("bokeh"), as I do. It seems to me, that to make one's subject "pop," one should make one's subject more interesting - but that's a whole other topic.

All in all, viewers of this blog will notice little difference. The 5D is a full-frame 20D, and the 30D is a reduced-frame 5D, which sounds a bit murky, but it's the best way I can explain it. Anyway, all the pictures should look pretty much the same. Visitors to my night photography site "Nightening" will hopefully notice better pictures, and more of 'em. Here's hoping. Now, back to the history ...

Photos Canon EOS 30D

Concord Point Lighthouse

"Concord Point Lighthouse at Havre de Grace, Maryland was established to warn seafaring vessels away from the treacherous currents and shoals near the mouth of the Susquehanna River. Master builder John Donahoo was responsible for the construction of the lighthouse in his hometown, where he also served multiple terms as a Havre de Grace town commissioner. At the time of its decommissioning in 1975, the Concord Point Lighthouse had the distinction of being the oldest beacon in continuous use in the entire state of Maryland. The name Concord Point is derived from Conquered Point, which is itself a rearrangement of the original christening, Point of Conquest." Continued.

Canon 30D

Falmanac on Fotolia

We've just started selling some of our pictures at Fotolia.com. Fotolia is a "micro-stock agency," selling good photography at good prices. How good? How's a dollar sound? That's what a 1600 x 1200 download costs. A download big enough for larger prints costs two or three dollars, depending on the size.
So far, we've uploded a dozen pictures, but there's more on the way. Check 'em out here.

The lockhouse museum at Havre de Grace

"Located in quaint Havre de Grace, Maryland, the restored lock house stands at what was once the Southern terminus of the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal.
Construction began on the canal in 1836 and was completed in 1840. The 45 miles of canal ran from Havre de Grace at the top of the Chesapeake Bay to Wrightsville, PA. It linked with other canals to open central Pennsylvania to convenient trade with Philadelphia and Baltimore." Continued.

Photos Canon 20D/30D ©Kim Choate/falmanac

Museum brings medicine into present

FREDERICK, Md. (Baltimore Examiner) - Like Washington’s cherry tree and the Tecumseh curse, the barbaric reputation of Civil War doctors is little more than an American legend, says Ryan Rokicki, curator of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick.
“A lot myths have been perpetrated over the years — Civil War surgeons being butchers rather than doctors and patients undergoing very harsh operations, kicking, screaming, and biting the bullet,” Rokicki said. “None of this is true.” Continued.

National Archives

Country Churches: McKendree UMC

York County, PA
Canon 5D

New book chronicles history of Baltimore suburb

"From its development from farmland and sprawling estates to a popular summer destination for city dwellers, followed by an economic decline and plans for revitalization, a new book traces the history of this longtime Baltimore suburb.
"Essex," written by local journalist and historian Jackie Nickel, was released April 16 by Arcadia Publishing. It's part of the publisher's "Images of America" series, which produces photographic histories of communities throughout the country, including Dundalk and Highlandtown." Continued.

Photo John Collier/FSA

Morning Fences

Baldwin, Maryland
Canon 5D

Ramblin' Round: A note on Guyana

Some men were indicted yesterday for conspiring to blow up a pipeline at JFK Airport in New York. Several of them were from Guyana, a country in South America. As one of the few Americans who've actually been to Guyana, I'd like to say a few things about the place and its people.

Guyana is a small country, about the size of Michigan, in northeastern South America. About 750,000 people live there. The country is a republic. The official language is English and for a long time it was a British colony. The population, says the CIA World Fact Book, is "East Indian 50%, black 36%, Amerindian 7%, white, Chinese, and mixed 7%." The country's religions break down similarly "Christian 50%, Hindu 35%, Muslim 10%, other 5%." Most of the population lives along the coast. The rest of the country is mostly rain-forest, sparsely populated by Amerindians and the occasional mining camp. It is a "third world country" and many of the people who live there are impoverished.

The president of Guyana is Bharrat Jagdeo. He strikes me as a decent, pragmatic man. Which leads me to one of the country's charming peculiarities, its accessibility. The place is like a third world Mayberry - a Mayberry with significant street crime. If you haven't seen the president, or any other member of the government up close, you must not get out much. It is, for the most part, a friendly and casual country.

Despite the fact that it's located in South America, the culture is more Caribbean than anything else, but it isn't what you'd call a tourist haven. The people are hard working and I never ran into any overt anti-American sentiment while I was there. Most of the people, when discovering that I was from the U.S., reacted like this: "Can you get me a job in America?" There are many Guyanese living in the United States.

As for radical Islam, I couldn't find any when I was down there last (2001). I couldn't even find a mosque. I attended a Hindu temple and a Christian church, but I couldn't find any Islamic services at all. (There are mosques in Guyana, I just never ran across any.)

The best way to learn about the country, short of a visit, is by listening to the country's official radio station. Unfortunately it's a hard catch, even via shortwave, even within parts of Guyana itself, and believe you me, I have some major shortwave equipment. VOG says it webcasts, but I couldn't get it to work, which is too bad as it's one of the most charming and informative radio stations I've ever listened to.

It concerns me that the actions of a few wannabe terrorists could give Guyana a bad name. If there are some people there who intend to do harm to the US, they must be brought to justice, but that is all. Sanctions, or worse, seem to me, entirely uncalled for. The country is not a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. Nor does it foster an anti-American climate. It is a country of hardworking people doing their level best to get along in this world, busily minding their own business, no more and no less. I hope we do the same.

©falmanac

Old Bridge

"Through truss" bridges were a common feature of 20th century America. This one spans the Little Gunpowder River in Fallston, Maryland.