Heck Of A Guy

Introduction

Actually, this posting is not a self-sufficient madeleine as much as frosting on a madeleine – except that, as far as I can determine, frosting is not an adornment of proper madeleines. It’s wretchedly tricky to construct an operational cuisine-dependent metaphor when ones culinary expertise is limited to recipes that require a dishwasher¹.

The perceptive reader will have already detected the distinctive signs and symptoms of a posting turning rogue: flaring tangents (does tangent toleration enable such activity, and, if so, would that be going off on a co-tangent?), increasingly shaky contextual syntax, allusions without conclusions, ideas precariously piled on unstable notions atop wobbly concepts — not unlike those cheerleader pyramids banned from this year’s NCAA Basketball Championships, (gratuitous (i.e., superfluous) ) double parentheticals, and overlong lists further extended by a terminal “etc.” or a pseudo-sophisticated ellipsis, as though the author cannot quite surrender even one of the infinite possibilities he senses just beyond his intellectual grasp, …

I’m sorry you had to see that.

Reset

On reassessment, the point I’m apparently trying to make has to do with the postulate noted in a previous posting that “the primary benefit of studying history is understanding that history is not an inevitable chain of events (i.e., things didn’t have to turn out the way they did).”

This morning, while searching through archived email for another matter altogether, I fortuitously happened onto a message indicating my source for that concept. Although the idea that history is not just a predetermined destiny being fulfilled on a preset timetable is no doubt an ancient one, it seems only fair to at least acknowledge where I first saw it elucidated.

I initially came across this quotation (which may be slightly paraphrased) while listening to a taped series of lectures on Truman by David McCullough:²

… one of the truths about history that needs to be portrayed – needs to be made clear to a student or a reader – is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened.

Because I thought the quotation would be more meaningful in context (and because tracking down and listening to tapes seemed a suboptimal recommendation for me to make), I hoped to find an item on the web by or about McCullough that incorporated this idea.

Not to worry; Googling revealed that Mr. McCullough has developed a respectable repertoire of a dozen or so ideas and, not unlike recording stars who sell their 8-15 hits in a multitude of combinations and permutations,³ rearranges and shuffles them to fit the occasion.

In any case, one of the reGoogitated articles was, “Our Best Hope for the Future,” published in the Boundless webzine, which focuses on the value of teaching history to young people .

I’ve pasted the pertinent excerpt below, but the entire article isn’t much longer than this post and is significantly more thoughtful, so I recommend you give it a look as well.

The task of teaching and writing history is infinitely complex and infinitely seductive and rewarding. And it seems to me than one of the truths about history that needs to be portrayed – needs to be made clear to a student or a reader – is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. History could have gone off in any number of different directions in any number of different ways at any point along the way, just as your own life can. You never know. One thing leads to another. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Actions have consequences. These all sound self-evident. But they’re not self-evident – particularly to a young person trying to understand life.

Enjoy your Sunday.


Update: The other dishwasher-dependent recipe is now available at Chocolodka


Footnotes

1. Yes, indeed, that “recipes” in “recipes that require a dishwasher” is plural; there is at least one more heckofaguy.com dishwasher creation in the coming attractions↩
2. McCullough has authored, in addition to the Truman biography, several notable books and articles dealing with of American History, including 1776, John Adams, and The Johnstown Flood.↩
3. While some of these variations may not exist — yet — it seems as though I’ve purchased all of them and more: The Mamas & the Papas Greatest Hits, The Greatest Hits of The Mamas & the Papas, The Mamas & the Papas Sing Their Greatest Hits, The Mamas & the Papas — An Anthology of Their Greatest Hits, The Mamas & the Papas Gold, The Mamas & the Papas - 16 Greatest Hits, … ↩

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