Tongerlo's Treasure, Leonardo's Last Supper

SPECIAL EDITION: The Last Supper

Tongerlo's Treasure, Last Supper



Everyone is familiar with Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper which is a mural in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The subject of The Last Supper was actually a fairly common and oft requested subject for refectory murals. Usually the painting would celebrate the establishment of the Eucharist.

But Da Vinci was a creative genius and he often broke free from the constraints of convention. He chose to paint the moment that Jesus announces “one of you will betray me!” Leonardo’s mastery of composition and geometry creates a tension in the room you can cut with a knife. The figure of Judas is pulled into the drama by Leonardo’s chiaroscuro. The painting is amazing.

Unfortunately, the painting is mostly gone, destroyed by moisture from the kitchen behind it and desecrated with a doorway cut into it. Leonardo also departed from another convention; that of fresco, where an artist paints into wet plaster. Instead, he painted in the relatively new medium of oil. Leonardo loved oil. He developed his signature sfumato technique because oil allowed him to. Unfortunately there was little knowledge of surface adhesion. The paint eventually separated from the wall and now all that is left is a restoration of a fraction of Da Vinci’s original – or is it?

When King Louis XII of France invades Milan in the early 1500, he saw the recently completed mural on the refectory wall. He was so enamored of it that he made plans to crate the wall and carry it back to France. When that idea proved to be impractical he apparently commissioned Leonardo to create a copy and had it taken to the Chateau de Gallion. This time it was done on canvas. But it disappeared in the centuries that followed, only to be found again in Tongerlo Abbey in Belgium. An abbot had purchased it in 1645. Today it is in a small chapel on the grounds of Tongerlo Abbey.

Researchers Jean-Pierre Isabouts and Christopher Heath Brown researched the Tongerlo painting and found much evidence to suggest that this is indeed the painting that Louis XII commissioned. Though much of the work appears to have been done by Leonardo’s pupils, there are a few areas of the painting that reveal his sublime sfumato technique – notably in the face of John the Beloved Apostle.


The Tongerlo Last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci and Students.

Leonardo da Vinci's Amazing Bridge Designs

Volume XX, Issue XII: Leonardo da Vinci's Amazing Bridge Designs

The Da Vinci Bridge by A.C.E. Coop



In a matter of minutes a pile of sticks becomes a bridge! Here is Leonardo da Vinci’s design for a portable fastenerless bridge as found in his notebooks and reconstructed by students of Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop.



The Golden Horn Bridge
[click to read]

Da Vinci's Forgotten Design for the Longest Bridge in the World Proves What a Genius He Was. It would have been held together by compression only. Leonardo da Vinci was truly a Renaissance man, impressing both his contemporaries and modern observers with his intricate designs that spanned many disciplines. But although he's best known for iconic works such as Mona Lisa and Last Supper, in the early 16th century, da Vinci designed a lesser-known structure: a bridge for the Ottoman Empire that would have been the longest bridge of its time. Had it been built, the bridge would have been incredibly sturdy, according to a new study. In 1502, Ottomon ruler Sultan Bayezid II requested proposals for the design of a bridge that would connect Constantinople, what's today Istanbul, to the neighboring area known as Galata. Da Vinci was among those who sent a letter to the sultan describing a bridge idea. (read more)


The Vebjørn Sand da Vinci Project built a laminated-wood parabolic-arch pedestrian bridge in Norway over European route E18 in Ås, Norway, in 2001. It was a partnership between the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and Norwegian painter and artist Vebjørn Sand, who headed the project. The resulting da Vinci Bridge, based on the Golden Horn design, is one of several installations that Sand is known for in Norway. Wikipedia

MIT Engineers Test da Vinci's Design
[read more]

In 1502 A.D., Sultan Bayezid II sent out the Renaissance equivalent of a government RFP (request for proposals), seeking a design for a bridge to connect Istanbul with its neighbor city Galata. Leonardo da Vinci, already a well-known artist and inventor, came up with a novel bridge design that he described in a letter to the Sultan and sketched in a small drawing in his notebook. He didn't get the job. But 500 years after his death, the design for what would have been the world's longest bridge span of its time intrigued researchers at MIT, who wondered how thought-through Leonardo's concept was and whether it really would have worked. (read more)

Leonardo da Vinci’s 1485 Parachute

Sometime around 1485 Leonardo da Vinci made a small sketch in Codex Atlanticus of a pyramid shaped ‘parachute’ along with the following description:



Se un uomo ha un padiglione de pannolino intasato, che sia 12 braccia per faccia e alto 12, potrà gittarsi d’ogni grande altezza senza danno di sé. (If a man has a structure made out of coated cloth 12 arms wide and 12 tall, he will be able to throw himself from any great height without hurting himself.) Don’t try this at home.

It is doubtful that da Vinci was actually able to test his device at the time. On June 26, 2000, 515 years later, British balloonist Adrian Nicholas built a parachute of wood and canvas to the artist’s specifications, dropping from a hot air balloon at 10,000 feet. He descended successfully to 2000 feet, where he used a conventional parachute to complete his descent. In 2008 Swiss adventurer Olivier Vietti-Teppa used a modified version of Leonardo’s parachute to carry him all the way to the ground.

Print out the sheets below to build your own Leonardo da Vinci Parachute!

Parachute (11” x 17”) | Instructions (8.5” x 11”) [click to view and print]

Modern Passover Miracle Thwarts Terror Attack



 

Leonardo da Vinci’s Pandemic Inspired Planning

Volume XX, Issue XI: Leonardo da Vinci City Planning

Leonardo da Vinci’s Pandemic Inspired Planning
And How it Might Help Us Today

By Bob Kirchman

In the years 1484 and 1485 the bubonic plague ravaged Milan. Though this was during the Renaissance, the city itself was Medieval in its plan with narrow streets crowded with a hodgepodge of shops, houses and other essential buildings. Sanitation was terrible and sunlight often never penetrated the narrow streets. The great Renaissance polymath saw this as a breeding ground for pestilence, and so he set to work to create a better city. In his notebooks he drew an open plan with wide spaces and canals – open to sunlight and with separation between passageways for freight and refuse and those for pedestrians. It was a first step towards modern city planning. 1.

The buildings were classical in form and multistory. Shops and services were on the lower levels and residences on the floors above. Fresh air and sunlight would freely waft in upon the houses above. The nasty dirty necessities of city life would be relegated to underground tunnels. This was a forward looking approach for sure. Unfortunately Ludovico Sforza, the Duke and absolute ruler of Milan, had little interest in rebuilding the fabric of his city so the idea remained on paper. Il Moro had more pressing matters on his mind as the French king sought at that time to conquer the powerful duchy. Eventually Renaissance planning would open up plazas and grand avenues, but this would be more driven by the need to create grand processional avenues to showcase important architecture and monuments.

The villages of great and peaceful republics would also place spaces between houses and allow for gardens as well as light and fresh air. Consider Colonial Williamsburg, where the gardens and grounds of the historic buildings are much cherished even in our day. Cities that no longer needed to crowd behind walls for defense naturally spaced themselves in a more appealing manner. On the frontier there were still fortifications around settlements but the lands that were settled far away from hostile enemies grew up open to the surrounding farms, fields and woodlands. Even our Revolution and our vicious Civil War were events so out of the ordinary that American cities did not hunker into walled fortifications. The Capital of our republic was actually laid out like the great hunting garden at the Palace of Versailles. There were even to be canals in the area now occupied by the National Mall. Pierre L’Enfant overlayed a grid with diagonal avenues in 1791 that was also crossed by canals, not unlike the drawings of Leonardo.

The machine age would fill the open avenues with railway tracks and then automobiles. By the end of the Nineteenth Century the major cities were reaching skyward. Again, density became the rule. Large cities like New York and Chicago again found themselves shut in from light and fresh air. Though advances in the design of waterworks and sewers helped, it was not uncommon for the wealthy to leave the cities in the Summertme for country homes and their benefits. Air conditioning made it possible for people to function more comfortably in the urban Summers and vacations became a more universal and more short-term practice for all classes of Americans. Streetcar suburbs allowed for year-round life in less crowded circumstances.

The coming of the automobile age was indeed a mixed blessing as more roads and parking spaces crowded into spaces needed for living. Buildings grew taller in the center of town while the suburbs kept moving outward. Eventually you had a new level of crowding, crowded highways, crowded elevators, and crowded transit. The last century saw the rise of the great Asian megacities. Though they seem to have been built largely for show, they crowd people into ‘Vertical Medievalism,’ small apartments packed close together in buildings that rise many stories. It was here that the modern pandemic would rage out of control. A virus born in Wuhan would rage through entire apartment buildings as frightened officials sealed the doors. Many died as a result. The shared utilities of such buildings served as a conduit for pestilence.


“Vertical Medievalism:” A multistory apartment building in Hong Kong.

Centralization has many benefits for economies of scale and in times past, defense. But urban planner Charles Marahone recently referenced some drawings by New Urbanist Leon Krier which show an interesting alternative – one that we might actually emulate. 2. Krier shows us the pattern of our cities at present, growing ever dense and upward at their cores and sprawling outward. This, says Marahone, is a recipe for pandemic. What if, muses Marahone, we instead let smaller towns grow spaced out from the mother city. With the increasing trend of remote working it becomes less necessary for large companies to concentrate their workers in high-rise buildings or suburban mega-campuses. Remote workers love the closeness to family and smaller community but miss the places where people come together, the centers of culture. To that end, Krier’s smaller town centers, spaced apart, make a lot of sense. Most people would live and work in a more convivial setting that was also less in contact with the great wide world. People would still enjoy the ability to move about, but would no longer crowd together twice a day on transportation.

Services would now be, of necessity, a thing to be provided locally. More people would be employed closer to home, doing what they do, that cannot be done remotely. Separation, a concept first visited by da Vinci, would now be possible on a regional scale. But, remembering that El Moro wasn’t ready to rebuild Milan, how do we in the 21st Century find the resolve to rebuild American Villages. The answer may be simpler than we think. For years a little village has languished near my home – the little town of Stuarts Draft. The old town center is lifeless, but the factories that drive the economy of Augusta County and a lot of suburban housing surround it. Here is an opportunity to reestablish a center, as Leon Krier envisions, of community activity. Many of our dead strip malls can be rezoned as multipurpose developments with housing and locally essential retail and services replacing the shuttered rows of storefronts.

Think of a world where people live in smaller community, open to the beauty of forest and farmland, but buffered from the great waves of pandemic and stresses of commuting. This is a world where people might live closer to their children, taking a lunch-time for a school event with them or just meeting with them for an hour in the park. It is a way to create more interaction, not less, while creating a healthy level of built-in ‘social distancing’ at the same time.

1 Paris Manuscript B, Leonardo da Vinci
2 Do You Want to Know What Works? Charles Marahone in Strong Towns, May 28, 2019

PDF Version [click to read]


A section of a building from Paris Manuscript B, Leonardo da Vinci


Architecture Biennale 2016 exhibit: Leonardo da Vinci – Water City


Architecture Biennale 2016 exhibit: Leonardo da Vinci – Water City


Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci


Leonardo da Vinci envisioned residences above shops and services, canals and separated walkways...

Here I have developed Leonardo da Vinci's exercise in city planning as a mixed use project to be built on the site of a dying mall. I added some trees and greenery to the final vision.




...which might be employed in the design of a village center replacing a dying mall.


Here the pool is replaced by greenspace in another variation.

 

Leonardo da Vinci's Uncertain Times

Volume XX, Issue IX: Creating Beauty in Uncertain Times

Leonardo da Vinci's Uncertain Times

The Renaissance is often pointed to as a time when learning and creativity flourished. Certainly these were a great time to be alive if you were an artist – or where they? Milan was surely a place at a crossroads, where art and culture came into their own, but it must be noted that the government of the Italian City-states was certainly not as wonderful as we might imagine. Ludovico Maria Sforza, the Duke of Milan, sought to present himself as a grand leader but he ultimately was deposed by Louis XII of France. The leadership of Renaissance City Sates was anything but dependable.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci came to Milan to make his fortune. The illegitimate son of a Florentine notary, young Leonardo was denied the advantage of a Classical education. His father, Piero da Vinci, did not entirely abandon his son, apprenticing him to Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Actually Verrocchio was a painter, sculptor, architect and a goldsmith as well. Painters in the day would be admitted into the Guild of St. Luke, which included both painters and physicians. The world was open to polymaths. Leonardo would seize on this opportunity – but the world of Florence offered little opportunity to an illegitimate child with no education so Leonardo wrote to Sforza offering his services as a military engineer. The sentiment expressed in Matthew 13:57 has driven many a young person to pick up stakes. This was true of Leonardo. Like so many who live “without honor in their own country” he found commissions in Milan that stretched his abilities. Sforza obtained the commission for “The Last Supper” to grace the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Unfortunately this beautiful mural was one of Leonardo’s first experiments with oils as opposed to the normal fresco methods. Sadly, the moisture in the wall flaked off about 80% of this masterwork.

Leonardo da Vinci would survive a wave of pandemic as the bubonic plague ravaged Milan in 1484 and 1485. A full third of the city’s population, some 50,000 people, were killed by the pestilence. Da Vinci noted that the medieval cities such as Milan, which had been built tight together for defense, were dirty, crowded, dark and most conductive to the spread of disease. He engaged in an exercise in city planning, proposing a more open and modern layout with canals and taller mixed use buildings spaced to allow for the admission of light and fresh air. Commerce would occupy the lower levels, with underground passageways for freight which would arrive by canal. Pedestrians would enjoy the space above and dwellings would be placed on the upper floors. Addressing separation and sanitation, Leonardo truly envisioned modern urban planning.

Ludovico wanted a great equestrian monument to himself and Leonardo prepared to cast the gigantic steed that he would be seated on in 1499. He built the clay model after sketching numerous horses in the duke’s stables. Unfortunately the war required that the bronze for the statue be diverted to manufacture cannons instead. Eventually invading mercenaries used the great clay model for target practice. “Il Gran Cavallo” would not be realized until 500 years later. In 1999 Sculptor Nina Akamu actually cast the fifteen ton bronze horse, which is now standing in Milan. Leonardo, upon the fall of Sforza, fled to Venice, then returned to Florence. In 1502 Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI. Leonardo served Borgia as a military architect, drawing up detailed maps and plans. Cesare Borgia was a ruthless ruler and warrier, becoming the model for Machiavelli’s Prince. Leonardo left his service and returned to Florence in 1503.

In 1506 Charles II d’Amboise, the acting French governor of Milan called Leonardo back to that city. Here Leonardo had a number of student/apprentices working in his studio and was able to devote himself to his scientific interests. When an alliance of Swiss, Spanish and Venetian troops drove the French from Milan, Leonardo stayed on in the villa of Vaprio d’Adda owned by the Medicis. When Lorenzo de Medici’s son Giovanni became Pope Leo X, Leonardo went to Rome but he did not remain in the Pope’s favor. Michelangelo and Raphael scored the big commissions. In 1516 Leonardo entered the service of Francis I of France who had recaptured Milan the year before. He was provided with a manor house, the Château du Clos Lucé, just below the king’s Château d'Amboise. Here he would spend his final days, partially disabled by a stroke. At his death, the painting known as Mona Lisa came into the hands of the French king. When exactly it was painted and of whom remains a much discussed mystery but the painting itself represents a triumph of study and technique for a master who’s life was lived in such times of turmoil.

 

The Life and GENIUS of Leonardo da Vinci

Volume XVI, Issue II: GENIUS: Leonardo da Vinci

The GENIUS of Leonardo da Vinci

He was born in April of 1452, the son of Notary Piero da Vinci and a peasant woman, Caterina. His birth, being illegitimate, might have sentenced him to a life of obscurity, as he could not pursue the professional path of his father. But in these days artists were considered ‘tradesmen,’ with their own guild and Piero apprenticed his son to the painter Andrea del Verocchio, who would teach him. Eventually young Leonardo’s inquisitive spirit led him to go far beyond his training. He actually had no formal academic training, yet he would use his keen abilities of observation to become, largely self taught, the personification of the Renaissance Man. He was a true polymath, who in stretching the profession of painting expanded knowledge in optics, engineering and biology. Art Historian Helen Gardner calls his a “feverishly inventive imagination.”

Assistants often painted the backgrounds of great masterpieces. Verrochio painted The Baptism of Christ and Leonardo added an angel holding Jesus’s robe to the composition that was so far superior to the work of his master that it is said that Verocchio “put down his brush and never painted again.” Today art experts can clearly see the hand of Leonardo in the landscape details in the background as well as in the face of the young angel. In 1472 Leonardo joined the Guild of Saint Luke – the guild of artists and practicers of medicine. He continued in the service of Verrochio after that. In 1481 he was directly in the service of the ruling Medici, receiving a commission for an altarpiece The Adoration of the Magi. Though a sublime painting, it was never finished! Leonardo brought it “right up to the brink” and left off, much to the displeasure of his patrons.

Fifteenth Century Florence was a world in upheaval and the political and societal events of that time would both shape and buffet the career of Leonardo. He served Verocchio long after his apprenticeship period ended, though he was already recognized as a superior talent. He was a perfectionist, often studying a partially completed work for hours on end. His inability to produce work rapidly led him to have difficulty with his patrons. Passed up by the Florentine Medici for further lucrative commissions, he went into the service of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. Milan, being the Northernmost City State in Italy was the most exposed to invasion. Leonardo designed many machines of war but seems chiefly to have been engaged in producing elaborate stage sets for the many balls and celebrations enjoyed by the Sforza women. In the movie Ever After, an elaborate masked ball, orchestrated by Leonardo, is depicted. This is probably a pretty good representation of the type of projects he was engaged in.

He prepared sketches and models for a great equestrian statue of Ludovicio’s predecessor, Francesco Sfoza, that was never executed. But his first truly great work was realized when he was asked to paint The Last Supper in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. When Ludovicio Sforza was overthrown by the French in 1500, he went to Venice where he was employed as a military engineer. He returned to Florence and in 1502 he left and entered the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer. In 1503 he returned to Florence and it was here that he began work on his Portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, eventually the model for the Mona Lisa. He would work on that painting for the rest of his life.

In 1516 Leonardo entered the service of Francis I, king of France (the period depicted in the movie Ever After). In 1517 it appears that Leonardo experienced the loss of the use of his right hand. He died in May of 1519 at the age of 67, possibly from a stroke. The King of France is said to have considered the painter a close friend. As he lay dying, Leonardo was full of repentance, saying that “he had offended against God and man by failing to practice his art as he should have done.” He sent for a priest and made confession before receiving the Eucharist. It is believed that King Francis cradled the painter’s head in his arms as he departed this life. Leonardo da Vinci left a legacy of observation, innovation and accomplishment which inspires us to this day!



Studies for The Last Supper


Study for the head of Phillip.

Leonardo da Vinci was a master of the art of observation, sketching all manner of people to create his paintings. It is said that he pretty easily found eleven of the models pretty quickly but was having trouble finding just the right Judas and Jesus. For Judas, he headed to the seedy side of Milan where criminals were known to abound. Eventually he found the strong features for the betrayer. For Christ, he attempted to visit the other extreme and sketched some of the young nobles of the city before backing off and creating the expressionless face of one fully human and fully Divine.


Study for the head of Jesus.


Study for the Head of Judas.


The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.

The Mona Lisa


Leonardo da Vinci's sfumato technique gives soft blending to the painting and perhaps adds to its mystery.

Josiah, Generations, True Christian Service

Volume XVI, Issue XXI

Josiah
By Bob Kirchman
Copyright © 2018, The Kirchman Studio, all rights reserved

Chapter 7: Generations

Having quite likely spared the colonists the agony of the Pilgrims’ first year, Josiah and Allison divided the greenhouses into plots. They encouraged the building of mud houses on one’s own section and the mere expediency of being on the land gave each settler a sense of purpose when he or she awoke in the morning. There even developed a bit of healthy competition in keeping one’s rows straighter than that of her neighbor. The result was, of course, a better yield than the original collective method might have produced.

The artisans who ran machines that wove cloth, the repairers of pressure suits, the makers of fired pottery and plates all collected in houses close to one another and although this was to have been a cashless society, a simple accounting and currency system emerged nonetheless. Eventually a little cookhouse developed into a tavern. The owners fermented a bit of grain for ‘personal use’ at first but as the years passed, they made enough to share and then sell. Their skill in preparing food did not go unnoticed and soon they were a regular stop for the settlers. There much discussion and business would be transacted.

There were no movies. There was no radio. All of the really high technology had been destroyed in the explosion, but somehow the noisy engines of agriculture and production had been relegated to the fringe… and that is why they survived. Evenings were quiet and the settlers eventually produced children. Although APOLLONIUS was originally planning to raise them in collective nurseries, the simple life of the settlers made it more logical for small family groups to raise their own children. In the decades that followed, those children had children. That is why the colony now had 122 souls. Obviously that part of colonization worked pretty much as planned.

As the years passed, youthful Josiah found his hair tinged with grey. He now watched grandchildren play in the yard of the much enlarged mud house. He vaguely remembered a phenomenon that someone in the Zimmerman Organization had referred to as ‘White Dog Thinking.’ It seems that in his younger days, Zimmerman had known a couple who were so convinced that the world was so awful that they decided to have no children. Instead, they lavished their affections on a series of large white dogs. The colonists, for their part, were so steeped in the mindset that they needed to be fruitful that as bad as things seemed, they never succumbed to ‘White Dog Thinking.’ Surely another ship would come and the colony would go on. The world they had left was really a bad place, they reasoned. It was only a matter of time until Mars became what APOLLONIUS had envisioned – a new home and hope for humanity!
(to be continued)

Thirty-nine Years of Adventure Together





This past weekend, on May 24th, my wife and I celebrated 39 years of adventures shared. We hiked up Humpback Mountain where we wrote our vows under a spreading tree preparing for our wedding. The photos below celebrate a hike in Lost River State Park, standing on a bridge in Chattanooga Tennessee and the day we climbed Old Rag Mountain in Madison County, Virginia.

ACE Players Present 'Robin Hood'
Photos by Amanda Riley

As the school year winds to a close, one of the highlights is always the drama department’s play. Prince John schemes, Robin and his Merry Men play and plan and it was a wonderful show. Cassady Bush’s set designs compliment a fine performance!





Crossing Da Vinci's Bridge
Photo by Bob Kirchman


A highlight of our year was the construction of the bridge design of Leonardo da Vinci.

Building a Self-Supporting Bridge

Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks contain sketches for this intriguing bridge design. It was originally conceived as a military design that would allow soldiers to each carry one piece of the bridge and erect it on site using no mechanical fasteners. The bridge could then be disassembled rapidly and carried along to be used again and again. It is a beautiful balancing of structure and forces that reminds me of the work of Buckminster Fuller, but it was created during the Renaissance!

Students in the studio art program of Augusta Christian Educators built this model of the Da Vinci Bridge.







Arlington and Washington on Memorial Day


Remembering Those Who Died Defending Liberty


The World War II Memorial.


Vietnam Memorial...


...and a hero remembered.


This is the view of Arlington Cemetery from the Old Post Chapel at Ft. Meyer.


Spring buds in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Unsung Road Builders

Then I told them of the hand of my G-d which was good upon me; as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work."
-- Nehemiah 2:18

Nehemiah in Bible times returned from exile in Persia to rebuild the defenses of Jerusalem. In 1942 another Nehemiah would find himself building the defenses of North America. Nehemiah Atkinson was a young man in the Army's 97th Engineering Battalion who found himself traveling by train with his unit to an unknown destination. Little did he know he and his colleagues would be building a road to Alaska!

With manpower stretched thin, military leaders decided to send black troops, many from the deep South, North to Dawson Creek and the beginnings of the proposed Alcan Highway. In that era of segregation and Jim Crow laws, many doubted that these men could perform in the hostile climate of Northwestern Canada, but perform they did! Their clothing was only designed for temperatures around forty degrees ABOVE zero. They managed to improvise. Many of the men could not read, they organized themselves so that the literate men would write letters home for their colleagues. They taught their colleagues to read.

They worked twelve to fourteen hours a day. Diversions were few and the black troops were isolated far in the wilderness. Some of the men managed to 'tame' some of the local wildlife... including black bears who would wander into camp attracted by the smell of food. The animals here had no experience with humans in some cases so they had no fear.

The black battalions were the last to get the best equipment, often laboring with hand tools even as the first D8 Caterpillar bulldozers came on the scene. Sometimes the guys from the 97th would perform a 'midnight requisition,' 'borrowing' a bulldozer from a better supplied unit. They would then proceed to build an impressive stretch of the highway on their own and post a sign to that effect.

Because the road was built under conditions of secrecy and the men of the 97th were so isolated, history largely forgot them. Still, their legacy is a mighty one. The Army was desegregated in 1948 and the 4000 black troops who had worked to build the Alcan had proved themselves ready for any task! Today their accomplishments are the subject of the book: The Black Soldiers who Built the Alaska Highway by John Virtue. They are also featured in the Megastructures presentation: Building the Alaskan Highway.

As America enters into a new era where she remembers how to build great works, the men of the 97th offer our generation an amazing example and inspiration!


Men arrive by train to build the highway.


Mess call for highway workers.


Signposts provided an outlet for creative expression.

Redefining Boundaries

Nehemiah Atkinson was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on September 8, 1918, the son of C.C. and Josephine Atkinson. His family moved to New Orleans in his youth when his father was appointed as Bishop of the diocese of the Holiness Church. He attended Thomy Lafon and J. W. Hoffman schools in New Orleans, and at the Louisiana Industrial Training School in Farmerville before beginning his military career. As a youth he had became fascinated by the game of tennis, hitting his first ball at age nine.

At that time, in the Great Depression, tennis was considered a pastime for the elite.White kids from places like Dartmouth were far more likely to play tennis than African-American kids in the Deep South. Still, Atkinson was undeterred in his pursuit of the game.

Atkinson loved the game and became quite good at it. When he came home from the war he had a passion to teach the game to young people of all backgrounds. He learned offset printing, worked as a night supervisor in a Coca-Cola plant and taught private tennis lessons by day to kids from well-to-do white families. He served as a tennis instructor for the New Orleans Recreation Department for 23 years before retiring in 1995. His legacy is an impressive number of young players who have attended college because of his mentoring!

New Orleans Tennis Professional Lloyd Dillon remembers Mr. Atkinson: “I can remember when Mr. Atkinson visited my high school in 1954. He played a classmate of mine who was also a good tennis player. Mr. Atkinson impressed me by the way he moved around on the basketball blacktop court converted into a tennis court for that event. He looked like he was gliding on air.”

Mr. A. ran tennis programs and used old wood racquets for kids each summer. He taught the basic tennis strokes, forehand, backhand, and serve; as well as the rules of the game. He had a way that made you love the game, even if you didn’t have any experience with the game.”

There were not tennis courts available for Blacks at that time in our neighborhood. Mr. A would use volleyball nets in parking lots or any place with space close by.”

He told me he was not going to retire unless he was certain that I got his job. Well, I did, but I knew it was going to be a tall order to do half of what he did with tennis and his life. Sometimes when I would get upset, he would always tell me to read Psalms 37:2,3:

 Trust in the LORD and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.”[1.]

True Christian Service
Excerpt from A Dish of Orts (scraps)
By George MacDonald

But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it should not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
-- Matthew 20:25-28


Archer slit, Chateau de Saint-Albain. Photo by Bob Kirchman.

Every spring-fountain of gladness about us is his making and his delight. He tends us and cares for us; he is close to us, breathing into our nostrils the breath of life, and breathing into our spirit this thought and that thought to make us look up and recognize the love and the care around us. What a poor thing for the little baby would it be if it were to be constantly tended thus tenderly and preciously by its mother, but if it were never to open its eyes to look up and see her mother's face bending over it. A poor thing all its tending would be without that. It is for that that the other exists; it is by that that the other comes. To recognize and know this loving-kindness, and to stand up in it strong and glad; this is the ministration of God unto us. Do you ever think "I could worship God if he was so-and-so?" Do you imagine that God is not as good, as perfect, as absolutely all-in-all as your thoughts can imagine? Aye, you cannot come up to it; do what you will you never will come up to it. Use all the symbols that we have in nature, in human relations, in the family--all our symbols of grace and tenderness, and loving-kindness between man and man, and between man and woman, and between woman and woman, but you can never come up to the thought of what God's ministration is. When our Lord came he just let us see how his Father was doing this always, he "came to give his life a ransom for many." It was in giving his life a ransom for us that he died; that was the consummation and crown of it all, but it was his life that he gave for us--his whole being, his whole strength, his whole energy--not alone his days of trouble and of toil, but deeper than that, he gave his whole being for us; yea, he even went down to death for us.

But how are we to learn this ministration? I will tell you where it begins. The most of us are forced to work; if you do not see that the commonest things in life belong to the Christian scheme, the plan of God, you have got to learn it. I say this is at the beginning. Most of us have to work, and infinitely better is that for us than if we were not forced to work, but not a very fine thing unless it goes to something farther. We are forced to work; and what is our work? It is doing something for other people always. It is doing; it is ministration in some shape or other. All kind of work is a serving, but it may not be always Christian service. No. Some of us only work for our wages; we must have them. We starve, and deserve to starve, if we do not work to get them. But we must go a little beyond that; yes, a very great way beyond that. There is no honest work that one man does for another which he may not do as unto the Lord and not unto men; in which he cannot do right as he ought to do right. Thus, I say that the man who sees the commonest thing in the world, recognizing it as part of the divine order of things, the law by which the world goes, being the intention of God that one man should be serviceable and useful to another--the man, I say, who does a thing well because of this, and who tries to do it better, is doing God service.

We talk of "divine service." It is a miserable name for a great thing. It is not service, properly speaking, at all. When a boy comes to his father and says, "May I do so and so for you?" or, rather, comes and breaks out in some way, showing his love to his father--says, "May I come and sit beside you? May I have some of your books? May I come and be quiet a little in your room?" what would you think of that boy if he went and said, "I have been doing my father a service." So with praying to and thanking God, do you call that serving God? If it is not serving yourselves it is worth nothing; if it is not the best condition you can find yourselves in, you have to learn what it is yet. Not so; the work you have to do to-morrow in the counting-house, in the shop, or wherever you may be, is that by which you are to serve God. Do it with a high regard, and then there is nothing mean in it; but there is everything mean in it if you are pretending to please people when you only look for your wages. It is mean then; but if you have regard to doing a thing nobly, greatly, and truly, because it is the work that God has given you to do, then you are doing the divine service.

Of course, this goes a great deal farther. We have endless opportunities of showing ourselves neighbours to the man who comes near us. That is the divine service; that is the reality of serving God. The others ought to be your reward, if "reward" is a word that can be used in such a relation at all. Go home and speak to God; nay, hold your tongue, and quietly go to him in the secret recesses of your own heart, and know that God is there. Say, "God has given me this work to do, and I am doing it;" and that is your joy, that is your refuge, that is your going to heaven. It is not service. The words "divine service," as they are used, always move me to something of indignation. It is perfect paganism; it is looking to please God by gathering together your services,--something that is supposed to be service to him. He is serving us for ever, and our Lord says, "If I have washed your feet, so you ought to wash one another's feet." This will be the way in which to minister for some.

But still, when we are beginning to learn this, some of us are looking about us in a blind kind of way, thinking, "I wish I could serve God; I do not know what to do! How is it to be begun? What is it at the root of it? What shall I find out to do? Where is there something to do?"

Now, first of all, service is obedience, or it is nothing. This is what I would gladly impress upon you; upon every young man who has come to the point to be able to receive it. There is a tendency in us to think that there is something degrading in obedience, something degrading in service. According to the social judgment there is; according to the judgment of the earth there is. Not so according to the judgment of heaven, for God would only have us do the very thing he is doing himself. You may see the tendency of this nowadays. There is scarcely a young man who will speak of his "master." He feels as if there is something that hurts his dignity in doing so. He does just what so many theologians have done about God, who, instead of taking what our Lord has given us, talk about God as "the Governor of the Universe." So a young man talks about his master as "the governor;" nay, he even talks of his own father in that way, and then you come in another region altogether, and a worse one. I take these things as symptoms, mind. I know habits may be picked up, when they get common, without any great corresponding feeling; but a wrong habit tends always to a wrong feeling, and if a man cannot learn to honour his father, so as to be able to call him "father," I think one or the other of them is greatly to blame, whether the father or the son I cannot say. I know there are such parents that to tell their children that God is their "Father" is no help to them, but the contrary. I heard of a lady just the other day to whom, in trying to comfort her, some one said, "Remember God is your Father." "Do not mention the name 'father' to me," she said. Ah! that kind of fault does not lie in God, but in those who, not being like him, cannot use the names aright which belong to him.

But now, as to this service, this obedience. Our Lord came to give his life a ransom for the many, and to minister unto all in obedience to his Father's will. We call him equal with God--at least, most of us here, I suppose, do; of course we do not pretend to explain; we know that God is greater than he, because he said so; but somehow, we can worship him with our God, and we need not try to distinguish more than is necessary about it. But do you think that he was less divine than the Father when he was obedient? Observe his obedience to the will of his Father. He was not the ruler there. He did not give the commands; he obeyed them. And yet we say He is God! Ah, that is no difficulty to me. Obedience is as divine in its essence as command; nay, it may be more divine in the human being far; it cannot be more divine in God, but obedience is far more divine in its essence with regard to humanity than command is. It is not the ruling being who is most like God; it is the man who ministers to his fellow, who is like God; and the man who will just sternly and rigidly do what his master tells him--be that master what he may--who is likest Christ in that one particular matter. Obedience is the grandest thing in the world to begin with. Yes, and we shall end with it too. I do not think the time will ever come when we shall not have something to do, because we are told to do it without knowing why. Those parents act most foolishly who wish to explain everything to their children--most foolishly. No; teach your child to obey, and you give him the most precious lesson that can be given to a child. Let him come to that before you have had him long, to do what he is told, and you have given him the plainest, first, and best lesson that you can give him. If he never goes to school at all he had better have that lesson than all the schooling in the world. Hence, when some people are accustomed to glorify this age of ours as being so much better in everything than those which went before, I look back to the times of chivalry, which we regard now, almost, as a thing to laugh at, or a merry thing to make jokes about; but I find that the one essential of chivalry was obedience. It is recognized in our army still, but in those times it was carried much farther. When a boy was seven years old he was sent into another family, and put with another boy there to do what? To wait with him upon the master and the mistress of the house, and to be taught, as well, what few things they knew in those times in the way of intellectual cultivation. But he also learned stern, strict obedience, such as it was impossible for him to forget. Then, when he had been there seven years, hard at work, standing behind the chair, and ministering, he was advanced a step; and what was that step? He was made an esquire. He had his armour given him; he had to watch his armour in the chapel all night, laying it on the altar in silent devotion to God. I do not say that all these things were carried out afterwards, but this was the idea of them. He was an esquire, and what was the duty of an esquire? More service; more important service. He still had to attend to his master, the knight. He had to watch him; he had to groom his horse for him; he had to see that his horse was sound; he had to clean his armour for him; to see that every bolt, every rivet, every strap, every buckle was sound, for the life of his master was in his hands. The master, having to fight, must not be troubled with these things, and therefore the squire had to attend to them. Then seven years after that a more solemn ceremony is gone through, and the squire is made a knight; but is he free of service then? No; he makes a solemn oath to help everybody who needs help, especially women and children, and so he rides out into the world to do the work of a true man. There was a grand and essential idea of Christianity in that--no doubt wonderfully broken and shattered, but not more so than the Christian church has been; wonderfully broken and shattered, but still the essence of obedience; and I say it is recognized in our army still, and in every army; and where it is lost it is a terrible loss, and an army is worth nothing without it. You remember that terrible story from the East, that fearful death-charge, one of the grandest things in our history, although one of the most blundering:--

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die;
Into the valley of death
Rode the Six Hundred."

So with the Christian man; whatever meets him, obedience is the thing. If he is told by his conscience, which is the candle of God within him, that he must do a thing, why he must do it. He may tremble from head to foot at having to do it, but he will tremble more if he turns his back. You recollect how our old poet Spenser shows us the Knight of the Red Cross, who is the knight of holiness, ill in body, diseased in mind, without any of his armour on, attacked by a fearful giant. What does he do? Run away? No, he has but time to catch up his sword, and, trembling in every limb, he goes on to meet the giant; and that is the thing that every Christian man must do. I cannot put it too strongly; it is impossible. There is no escape from it. If death itself lies before us, and we know it, there is nothing to be said; it is all to be done, and then there is no loss; everything else is all lost unto God. Look at our Lord. He gave his life to do the will of his Father, and on he went and did it. Do you think it was easy for him--easier for him than it would have been for us? Ah! the greater the man the more delicate and tender his nature, and the more he shrinks from the opposition even of his fellowmen, because he loves them. It was a terrible thing for Christ. Even now and then, even in the little touches that come to us in the scanty story (though enough) this breaks out. "We are told by John that at the Last Supper He was troubled in spirit, and testified." And then how he tries to comfort himself as soon as Judas has gone out to do the thing which was to finish his great work: "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself." Then he adds,--just gathering up his strength,--"I shall straightway glorify him." This was said to his disciples, but I seem to see in it that some of it was said for himself. This is the grand obedience! Oh, friends, this is a hard lesson to learn. We find every day that it is a hard thing to teach. We are continually grumbling because we cannot get the people about us, our servants, our tradespeople, or whoever they may be, to do just what we tell them. It makes half the misery in the world because they will have something of their own in it against what they are told. But are we not always doing the same thing? and ought we not to learn something of forgiveness for them, and very much from the fact that we are just in the same position? We only recognize in part that we are put here in this world precisely to learn to be obedient. He who is our Lord and our God went on being obedient all the time, and was obedient always; and I say it is as divine for us to obey as it is for God to rule. As I have said already, God is ministering the whole time. Now, do you want to know how to minister? Begin by obeying. Obey every one who has a right to command you; but above all, look to what our Lord has said, and find out what he wants you to do out of what he left behind, and try whether obedience to that will not give a consciousness of use, of ministering, of being a part of the grand scheme and way of God in this world. In fact, take your place in it as a vital portion of the divine kingdom, or--to use a better figure than that--a vital portion of the Godhead. Try it, and see whether obedience is not salvation; whether service is not dignity; whether you will not feel in yourselves that you have begun to be cleansed from your plague when you begin to say, "I will seek no more to be above my fellows, but I will seek to minister to them, doing my work in God's name for them."[2.]


Chateau de Saint-Albain. Photo by Bob Kirchman.


Chateau de Saint-Albain. Photo by Bob Kirchman.

Putting a Man on the Moon
Speech by President John F. Kennedy

Delivered in person before a joint session of Congress May 25, 1961

Section IX: Space:

Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides--time for a great new American enterprise--time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

Recognizing the head start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines, which gives them many months of lead-time, and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for some time to come in still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts on our own. For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last. We take an additional risk by making it in full view of the world, but as shown by the feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful. But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

I therefore ask the Congress, above and beyond the increases I have earlier requested for space activities, to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations--explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

Secondly, an additional 23 million dollars, together with 7 million dollars already available, will accelerate development of the Rover nuclear rocket. This gives promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself.

Third, an additional 50 million dollars will make the most of our present leadership, by accelerating the use of space satellites for world-wide communications.

Fourth, an additional 75 million dollars--of which 53 million dollars is for the Weather Bureau--will help give us at the earliest possible time a satellite system for world-wide weather observation.

Let it be clear--and this is a judgment which the Members of the Congress must finally make--let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action, a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs: 531 million dollars in fiscal '62--an estimated 7 to 9 billion dollars additional over the next five years. If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.

Now this is a choice which this country must make, and I am confident that under the leadership of the Space Committees of the Congress, and the Appropriating Committees, that you will consider the matter carefully.

It is a most important decision that we make as a nation. But all of you have lived through the last four years and have seen the significance of space and the adventures in space, and no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space.

I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.

This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.

New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact, aggravate them further--unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”