She stands for all our heroes--
Courageous, strong, and brave.
She reminds us of the freedoms
They’ve fought to win and save.
                                  from Meet Our Flag, Old Glory
                                    written by April Jones Prince
                                          illustrated by Joan Paley
                                               Little, Brown, 2004

    I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and only just became aware that Cleveland has its own flag. It’s had one since 1896.
    General Moses Cleavland chose the location for his city at the spot where the mouth of the Cuyahoga River empties into the southern shore of Lake Erie. It was to be the site for the new capital city of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a land company made of speculators from Connecticut. After making his decision, Cleaveland returned to Connecticut and never came back. 
    Local lore says that The Cleveland Advertiser dropped the first A in his name to make the name fit on its masthead. True? We will probably never know.
    In its early days, Cleveland served as a major trading hub for the Great Lakes. 
    In the War of 1812, the 100 or so inhabitants of the general’s village had no idea of their importance to the War declared on Great Britain on June 18th. Because of its location, though, it served as a base for supplies, a meeting place for military units, and the establishment of Fort Huntington and a military hospital, neither of which are still standing.
    By the time of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, which ended the war, the residents, because of their proximity to the river and the lake, could congratulate themselves on their strategic contributions to the nation’s war effort and their use of natural resources in their defense against an invasion that could have, but did not actually, materialize.
    After the Ohio and Erie Canal was finished in 1832, the village became a key link from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes and from there to the Atlantic Ocean. 
    The population continued to grow.
    Soon, Cleveland became home to immigrants from Europe and the Middle East as well as African American migrants moving North on their quest for better working conditions.
    Before and during the Civil War, Cleveland was a major stop on the Underground Railroad. The city was full of a vocal group of abolitionists, strongly influenced by their roots in New England. 
    During the Civil War, Cleveland became an industrial giant, manufacturing everything from railroad iron to warships.
    More people came.
    The Rockefellers grew their refining centers in Cleveland, founding Standard Oil, which became Sohio before partnering with BP in the 1960s. The company used the name Sohio until 1991.
    More business meant more opportunity. More opportunity, more people.
    At the beginning of the 1900s, Cleveland was the country’s sixth largest city. Car manufacturing rivaled Detroit. 
    In the first Gilded Age, generous philanthropists helped grow Cleveland into a cultural center. The Cleveland Museum of Art advertised free admission. The Cleveland Orchestra, founded in 1918, is known as one of the five major orchestras in the US. Playhouse Square, a hub for live theater was built in the 1920s. North-moving musicians brought the jazz scene with them.
    The 1920s also saw the growth of major retailers.
    And Cleveland was a sports town. The Cleveland Guardians (playing as the Cleveland Indians) won their first World Series championship in 1920. 
    But the Great Depression brought unemployment to about half of the city’s industrial workers. 
    Recovery took time, but by the end of WWII, Cleveland was back. Population boomed to almost 1,000,000 people. Cleveland baseball, hockey, and football teams dominated their leagues. 
    And along came Alan Freed and his “rock and roll.” 
    But Cleveland grew in fits and starts.
    When I was growing up, Cleveland was nicknamed “The best location in the nation.” By the time I was in high school, it was “the mistake on the lake.” Pollution in the Cuyahoga River was in no small part to blame for the name. Racial tension, tight budgets, and lost population due to “de-industrialization” played their part. A river burning and a spoiled lake competed with the “Emerald Necklace.” 
    How do you put all that on a flag? 
    It started in 1895 when a New York journalist, Julian Ralph, visited Cleveland. He was impressed with Cleveland’s civic spirit and pride and told William Stokely, a Plain Dealer reporter, that he was surprised Cleveland did not have a flag. Ralph, Stokely, and city leaders held a contest. 
    In 1895, Cleveland City Council unanimously adopted 18-year-old Susan Hepburn's design. It was unveiled on October 21, 1895, in time for the 100th anniversary of Cleveland's birth. Ms. Hepburn, an art school graduate, incorporated a shield with the name Cleveland on it, an anvil, a hammer, and a wheel to show the city’s growing industry. An anchor and windlass represented the importance of the lake and river. All on a red, white, and blue background. The current mayor, Robert McKisson, added the words “Progress and Prosperity” the next month.
    Click here to see the original 1896 version:
    A lot can happen in 100 + years, and last year a group of volunteer Clevelanders decided it was time to update the flag. 
    They wanted the flag to be “instantly recognizable” and “intimately connected with the identity of our city.” It was to be modern and inclusive. A new contest was put in place.
    The new flag was unfurled last week. It’s designed by Shan Rodich and incorporates symbols both subtle and evocative.
    See the flag and read up on the symbolism here: 
    You can see most of the submissions here: 
    Ted Kaye is a vexillologist, someone who studies flags. In his book Good Flag, Bad Flag, along with his five elements of good flag design, he includes a tip. Draw it small. Use a one-inch by one-and-a-half-inch rectangle to design your flag. That’s what a 3x5 foot flag looks like atop a flagpole from 100 feet away.
    I wonder what a flag of Youngstown would look like?
                      Be curious! (and hold tight, especially when
                                                     the wind blows)

I’m reading The Queen’s Secret by Karen Harper (HarperCollins, 2020). At first, I was put off by the introductory pages’ long list of monarchs and their relations. I thought the story would be mired in the complexity of characters. I’m happy to report I was wrong. I’m learning about the Queen Mother, Elizabeth, who was QEII’s mother and the wife of King George VI. The book is historical fiction, and though extremely well-researched, the author admits to taking some liberties. Recommended.​

…pretty soon he was hundreds of miles from home and was singing loudly about everything he loved, and many other fish and mammals were listening to him…
                                      from Soren’s Seventh Song
                                           written by Dave Eggers
                                    illustrated by Mark Hoffmann
                                      Cameron Kids/Abrams, 2024

    Humpback whales are making a comeback. Well, four of the 14 identified family units are still protected as endangered and one is threatened, but the other ten are indeed, repopulating themselves. 
    Putting Captain Ahab’s ocean treks in his pursuit of Moby Dick and other adventurous types aside, owners, captains, and crew of whaling ships in the late 1800s and early 1900s were interested in only one thing, the money to be made by hunting, capturing, and processing whales. 
    Then, whales were hunted relentlessly, almost to extinction. Before their populations were decimated, they provided oil for lamps and machines. Spermaceti, a highly prized oil found in the head of a sperm whale, was a great prize. New Bedford, Massachusetts, was such a busy port dealing mostly in lamp oil, that it was nicknamed “The City That Lit the World.” 
    Other whales provided vast amounts of blubber, which, when separated from its skin and cut into chunks, was rendered into its own lesser grade of whale oil. The oil was processed into soap, paint, varnish, rope, and textiles.
    The bony plates in the upper jaw of some whales (including Humpbacks) strain food from the gallons of seawater whales suck in during feeding. Before plastic was invented, baleen harvested from hunted whales was made into stays in women’s corsets and hoops for their skirts. It was also made into umbrella ribs, riding crops, buggy whips, and hat brims.
    As you might imagine, whaling was a dangerous occupation. Before all the rendering of blubber into oil and baleen into corsets took place, a whale must be caught. A harpoon (a long shaft with a barb at the end) was the primary weapon, but whales are heavy. Their weight and the fury with which they fought made them hard to catch and quick to escape.
    That is, until Lewis Temple (c1800-1854), an African American abolitionist from New Bedford, Massachusetts, invented a pivoting iron head and attached that to the tip of a harpoon. Now, when the harpoon sunk into the flesh of the whale, the hinge at the tip pivoted, embedding the hook and ensuring the whale did not get away. 
    This simple invention revolutionized the whaling industry. Remaining in use until the 1950s, Temple’s toggle was so efficient that according to Dr. Wally Franklin of the Oceania Project, “between 1900 and 1978, over two million whales were killed.”
    Humpbacks became a protected species in the early 1960s, and in 1986, the International Whaling Commission placed a moratorium on commercial whaling, ending the practice (except in Japan.) Citing the possible need for use as a food source, Japan withdrew from the IWC in 1986. Since then, limits have been placed on the amount of whales Japanese whalers can take. 
    Whaling is also limited to “subsistence whaling” for the Inupiat and Siberian Yupik people living on (and off) the coast of Northwestern Alaska and monitored since 1979. Most of the whales harvested for food are not Humpbacks, though.
    Humpbacks live in every ocean in the world, but those 14 family groups cluster at the east and west coasts of South America, southern Africa, and Australia. 
    The water surrounding Australia is a dedicated whale sanctuary that has protected humpbacks, especially, since 1989. The water temperature is mild, the way they like it, and food is plentiful. According to Wally Franklin of the Oceania Project, 40,000 humpbacks live in Australian waters. 
    Dr. Franklin acknowledges that the severe depletion of sperm whales and near extinction of blue whales has provided little competition for humpbacks searching for food and mates. Which brings us to whalesong.
    According to the IFLAscience newsletter, all whales vocalize, but only a few species actually sing, and the best and most famous singers are humpbacks. Males and females use calls. They include clicks, whistles, and pulses. They are used for navigation, coordinating hunting strategies, and maintaining social bonds within a pod.
    But only males sing. Their songs are long, sometimes up to 20 minutes and include repeating phrases, rhythms, and structured patterns. Researchers think the primary reason for the song is to attract a mate. Maybe something like Elvis’s “Love Me Tender”? 
    So all the feeding, singing, and mating seems to be working, for now.
    I’ve never seen a live whale. They are so huge that even if I saw one in an aquarium, even if I was very young, I think I would remember. So I’ve only seen them on a screen, from a physical and electronic distance. Not the best way, I agree, but that’s all I have. 
    Because of the recent (1/22/25) executive order to disallow the Endangered Species Act to be an obstacle to energy development (read “drill, baby, drill”), I may never will.

I’m reading The Secret Letters by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Quill Tree, 2022). Recommended by my youngest grandson, it’s a combination of historical fiction and mystery with a friendship story that works to show readers the difference between junk and clutter. When two friends unravel two separate mysteries, they discover that true friendships can stand the test of time.

                                      Be curious! (and keep singing)

At first, [Farmer Brown] couldn’t believe his ears. 
Cows that type?
Impossible!
Click, clack MOO!
Click, clack, MOO!
Clickety, clack MOO!
                        from Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
                                          written by Doreen Cronin
                                          illustrated by Betsy Lewin
                                               Simon Spotlight, 2000

    According to typing.com's free typing test, I can type 61 words per minute with 99% accuracy. (I knew I mistyped a lowercase M when it should have been uppercase and didn’t go back to fix it.) I’m satisfied with that. I type a little (or a lot) slower, though, when I have to think before I type or remember how to spell a word instead of copying an already formulated text. I would probably type slower, too, if the words were nonsense words.
    But go ahead and click the link. Check yours, too, if you are curious.
    I learned to type on a manual machine, but my parents bought me an electric typewriter when I went to college. I don’t remember the brand, but it had an extra ribbon that magically erased my mistakes. I still had to listen for the ding at the end of each line and pay attention to the mark I made to show the bottom of the page, though. Lots of paper still ended up in the “scratch bin” for grocery lists, to-do lists, and checkbook balancing.
    Even though typewriters and typewriting are experiencing a small resurgence, NPR reported on a story last January that the last typewriter repair shop in Boston is closing. The owner, who is ready to retire, can’t find a buyer.
    Tom Furrier, who has been fixing typewriters for 45 years in Boston, will close his store at the end of this month (March, 2025). When he started working, “you could find 40 busy typewriter shops across Metro Boston,” Tom told an NPR interviewer last January. 
    After working there for many years, he bought the shop in 1990. Personal computers were gaining popularity, but a decade later, vintage was in, and Tom’s shop had people waiting in line for him to open. 
    In recent years, some big cities have become home to more shops, including Milwaukee, which claims to be the birth of the typewriter. 
    Henry Mill (1683?-1771), an English engineer, is credited with the invention of the first European typewriter in 1714. Queen Anne said of his machine, “[it] made counterfeiting more difficult and reading and writing easier.” 
    So, how easy is it to use a typewriter? Why are the keys arranged in a seemingly random order? Who came up with it? And is it really the best order?
    The long progression from Johannes Gutenberg to Bill Gates was an evolution in technology, mass production, and the spread of the written word.
    Today’s typewriter is based on the first commercial typewriter, designed by Christopher Latham Sholes and Carlos Glidden in 1866. Two years later, they contracted with the E. Remington Company to manufacture it.
    The letters were originally arranged in alphabetical order in two rows. Like later machines, each letter on the keyboard was attached to a rod that jumped to strike a paper when the key was struck, then snapped back into position. 
    Sholes, it’s said, discovered that the faster someone typed, the less time the rods had to snap back. They often collided and jammed. He decided to move the commonest letters to the most difficult places on the keyboard to slow down the typing and give the rods a little longer to fall back into place. He had designed the QWERTY keyboard.
    A different QWERTY story credits Densmore, a partner of Sholes. His layout considered common two-letter combinations. He placed each letter on the opposite side of the keyboard to provide efficiency in a two-handed movement while preventing collisions, clashes, and jams.
    QWERTY has been analyzed, studied, and experimented with since the first keyboard to use it. Well? Is QWERTY best? Only maybe. It’s surprisingly controversial. Loads of papers, studies, and experiments have been done. For now, at least, the keyboard isn’t changing. It’s the way it’s (almost) always been done. At least in English. 
    All Latin Alphabets use upper and lower case. It took five more years and the Industrial Revolution for Remington to add the “shift” key, allowing the typist to toggle between them.
    In Gutenberg’s time, letters used to set type were stored in cases. The capital letters or larger ones (the majuscule) were kept in the upper case, and the minuscule (smaller) ones went in the lower case. The names stuck. A discussion of majuscule and minuscule scripts would require a blog post of its own, so let’s leave it there for now.
    Very literal.
    The Cyrillic, Chinese, Thai, and Hebrew alphabets are some examples that mostly do not distinguish between upper and lower case. You can find more here. You can see layouts of their keyboards and type in any language you’d like here. It’s very cumbersome, though.    
    Centuries before modern, ok, vintage, typewriters became widely available, Johannes Gutenberg (c1395 - c1468 invented movable type. He was already familiar with printing and had created an alloy that could be quickly melted, cooled, and reformed. The small, metal pieces, each a single letter, could be arranged in infinite ways. He had also perfected an oil-based, fast-drying ink that was thick enough to coat the letters and still adhere to paper. The screw press, designed for rapid operation, also was in use before Gutenberg adapted it to its use in printing.
    But the essential element was Gutenberg’s adjustable mold. By using a frame, whole lines of text, upper case and lower, could be printed at once. 
    Paper had already been invented by the ancient Egyptians and Chinese, and movable type had already been invented in China. Inks and alloys were already in use, too, throughout the world. Perfecting the pieces and synthesizing them to create something so useful was Gutenberg’s genius.     
    The importance of his printing press can’t be overstated. Like the wheel, antibiotics, and electricity, it has changed our world forever.    

I just started reading When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (Knopf Doubleday/Vintage, 2022). It’s gotten mixed reviews, but I loved her Girl Who Drank the Moon (Algonquin Books for Young Readers, 2016. Newbery winner), so I decided to give this one a try. I’ll let you know next time.
                       Be curious! (and literal, when necessary)   

Lupe was ready to rock!
Lupe was ready to roll!
    .   .   .
The beat had a sound.
That sound came from letters.
Reading is like music! I just need to see the beat!”
                            from Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules!
        created by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo and Pat Zietlow Miller
                                          illustrated by Joe Cepeda
                                         Candlewick Press, [2002]

    The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its list of 14 nominees for the class of 2025 on February 12. Out of the 14, I know (or recognize) only six. Here’s the list from its website:   
*Bad Company
The Black Crowes
*Mariah Carey
*Chubby Checker
*Joe Cocker
*Billy Idol
Joy Division/New Order
*Cyndi Lauper
Maná
Oasis
Outkast
*Phish
Soundgarden
The White Stripes
* the ones I recognize. How did you do?
    Directly from their site (again), “Artists or bands become eligible for nomination 25 years after releasing their first commercial recording. Among this year’s 14 Nominees, eight are appearing on the ballot for the first time: Bad Company, The Black Crowes, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Billy Idol, Maná, Outkast, and Phish.” 
    They have each created their own “style and attitude,” influenced generations after them, and “continued the growth of rock & roll.”
    The voting panel is comprised of over 1,200 artists, historians, and music industry professionals. The judges consider three factors:
1.  an artist’s impact on music culture
2.  their influence on other musicians who have followed them
3.  the scope and longevity of their career and body of work
    Fan Voting is open through April 21, 2025. Use this link if you want to participate.
    The inductees will be announced in late April. This year, the Induction Ceremony will take place in Los Angeles, exact date TBA.
    Rock & Roll began as a particularly American phenomenon in the Deep South and grew to encompass the whole world, changing music forever. It defines a musical genre through connection, innovation, and rebellion. The sounds include “blue notes,” commonly found in a blend of spirituals, blues, and jazz.
    Without getting too deep into the weeds, the subgenres of Rock & Roll depend on “blue notes,” those sounds that come about a half-step above or below what we expect to hear. They create tension on the way to a resolution, usually in a familiar chord. 
    The best examples are subtle, emotionally resonant, and include improvisation, making them unique. Examples include John Coltrane’s saxophone solos, Stevie Wonder’s harmonies, and Aretha Franklin’s glissandos. They add an emotional dimension to the sounds.
    YouTube doesn’t like to share its links with a copy/paste. If you want to hear examples of blue notes, Google something like <examples of blues notes in music> to find several short clips.
    And who knew Rock & Roll has so many sub-genres? A quick search netted over 50! Blue notes are more common in some than in others.
    Here’s a list of 16 common subgenres from GrooveNexus, including their descriptions. From the birth of Rock & Roll in the 1950s in the sounds of Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly through Do-Wop, Disco, and Hip-Hop, sound experiments in rhythms, harmonies, and lyrics kept and keep evolving. My mom called it all “rotten roll.” I think she was not the only one who did. 
    My sister was more into Ricky Nelson. I liked Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and Papas, and Roberta Flack (2/10/37 – 2/24/25 RIP). I was, and still am, drawn more to the lyric than the rhythms and melodies. 
    In 1986, Cleveland, Ohio, was chosen to be the home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The building opened in 1995. By then, Rock & Roll was a worldwide phenomenon. People are still asking, “why Cleveland?”.
    Here’s the local legend. In the late 1940s, Alan Freed, the pioneer DJ for Rock & Roll, became friends with Leo Mintz, owner of Record Rendezvous in downtown Cleveland. Mintz knew what kids were buying, and Freed had the platform to showcase it. Mintz sponsored the show and donated the records. 
    By March 21, 1952, 14,000 tickets had been sold for the 11,000-capacity Cleveland Arena, the chosen venue to hold the Moondog Coronation Ball. It was the world’s first rock concert. Two days later, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported “[p]olice ended the ball at 10:45 p.m., observing the place was so filled that nobody could dance or hear the music.”
    Cleveland had become Rock & Roll’s debut city and made Alan Freed a rock star in his own right. 
    Rock & Roll continued to evolve. While not the first Rock & Roll song to be recorded, “Hang On Sloopy” was released by Atlantic Records in 1964. It became a standard and was recorded by the Yardbirds and later the McCoys and others. 
    Legend has it that the song’s inspiration was Dorothy Sloop, a jazz singer from Steubenville, Ohio. She was a student at The Ohio State University which adopted it as its "fight song."                                  
    “Hang On Sloopy” became the official rock song of the State of Ohio on November 20, 1985, by House Concurrent Resolution 16.
    
    All 50 states have a State Song except Maryland, “Maryland, My Maryland” (to the tune of “O Tannenbaum”) was repealed on 7/1/2021. 
    “Hang On Sloopy” is the only state song classified as Rock & Roll. 

I’m reading My Mother in Havannah by Rebe Huntman. A memoir, a reflection on motherhood, and an example of using “place” as a central theme, Rebe brings her readers with her on an emotional journey as she searches for spiritual connections in the land of her mother’s birth.
                                     -—Be curious! (and Rock on!)