I'm slowing down in retirement, but can't stop my mind from doing what it's been doing for years.

[Smart_Guy]

Hello Smart Guy

I think we're almost evolved, like 'near human' maybe. Thanks for the welcome.

Oh, then I guess it is okay

 

[metis]

Hello Metis
Did I get it right? It's getting tougher as I get older, and I can forget the first step in any routine, say like just checking my mail. And let me clarify what I said about anthropology, as I did not continue in the profession. At graduation I had a choice of working in LA, chasing down people with VD for the Public Health Service, or to go to Sicily as part of a team promoting Florida style orange juice, so I went to Sicily. And later traveled around the middle east, never to return to anthropology. And I now consider it a mistake, but I knew I couldn't do graduate school at the time.

I see you're getting right up there in age too, where did anthropology take you?

charley

Hello back at ya.

I did my undergrad work at Western Michigan University and discovered anthropology in the first semester of my junior year and I loved it so much that most of my classes the rest of that year and in my senior year were in anthro. I missed a triple major by one class, so I graduated with a double major (sociology and history) and a minor (anthro).

My graduate work was at Wayne State University, and over 3/4 of my classes were in anthro. I was going to work on my ph.d., but our son got diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so I couldn't spend the time to work on it-- family comes first.

I hired in a public high school here near Detroit, and a few years later they decided to offer anthro, so I taught that for roughly 30 years, usually having 2-3 classes of it per semester. I also taught it through distance learning so as a couple other schools could pick it up. I loved teaching that class and I never had trouble attracting students to it or retaining them once the class started.

I retired 12 years ago largely because i wanted to spend much mofre time up in da U.P. where my family was from, so we bought a place there where we live for 4-5 months of the year.

BTW,my wife was born and raised in Sicily, near Trapani, and we've been married for 48 years. In 2001, we spent five weeks there, staying with her relatives. Loved the place.

 

[Laika]

Welcome to RF Corynski. I hope you enjoy your time here.

 

[corynski]

Hello back at ya.

I did my undergrad work at Western Michigan University and discovered anthropology in the first semester of my junior year and I loved it so much that most of my classes the rest of that year and in my senior year were in anthro. I missed a triple major by one class, so I graduated with a double major (sociology and history) and a minor (anthro).

My graduate work was at Wayne State University, and over 3/4 of my classes were in anthro. I was going to work on my ph.d., but our son got diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so I couldn't spend the time to work on it-- family comes first.

I hired in a public high school here near Detroit, and a few years later they decided to offer anthro, so I taught that for roughly 30 years, usually having 2-3 classes of it per semester. I also taught it through distance learning so as a couple other schools could pick it up. I loved teaching that class and I never had trouble attracting students to it or retaining them once the class started.

I retired 12 years ago largely because i wanted to spend much mofre time up in da U.P. where my family was from, so we bought a place there where we live for 4-5 months of the year.

BTW,my wife was born and raised in Sicily, near Trapani, and we've been married for 48 years. In 2001, we spent five weeks there, staying with her relatives. Loved the place.

Magari, as they say in Catania. Io ricordo tanto dela Sicilia, che belleza! I remember the terrazzo where I would watch the sunrise every morning. It was my previous science work, engineering and architecture, that got me the job in Sicily. We, Etna Spa., were building a concentrated orange juice plant outside Catania, using the blood red oranges from Calabria. When concentrated it looked just like tomato juice. I was just a fill in man to finish up what the engineer had designed, so I managed to finish the electrical installation, and then later traveled around Italy trying to locate stations for the JetSpray machines we were installing everywhere. I took advantage of the opportunity to travel, going all the way over to Baalbek, in Lebanon. I remember stopping once in central Jordan and standing on a stretch of old roman road. What a feeling that was....... And then I never did find my way back to anthropology, except as a hobby. And I believe it was my ADHD that made it impossible to sit still to do graduate study. But I do believe they should teach it to youngsters to broaden their horizons, to give them a fuller knowledge of the peoples of the world.

Well, I'll try to keep up here,although my memory is going fast. Good to get to know you.

charley

 

[corynski]

Welcome to RF Corynski. I hope you enjoy your time here.

Thank you. I'll see how long my memory lasts...... A good forum is like a shot of energy....

 

[metis]

Magari, as they say in Catania. Io ricordo tanto dela Sicilia, che belleza! I remember the terrazzo where I would watch the sunrise every morning. It was my previous science work, engineering and architecture, that got me the job in Sicily. We, Etna Spa., were building a concentrated orange juice plant outside Catania, using the blood red oranges from Calabria. When concentrated it looked just like tomato juice. I was just a fill in man to finish up what the engineer had designed, so I managed to finish the electrical installation, and then later traveled around Italy trying to locate stations for the JetSpray machines we were installing everywhere. I took advantage of the opportunity to travel, going all the way over to Baalbek, in Lebanon. I remember stopping once in central Jordan and standing on a stretch of old roman road. What a feeling that was....... And then I never did find my way back to anthropology, except as a hobby. And I believe it was my ADHD that made it impossible to sit still to do graduate study. But I do believe they should teach it to youngsters to broaden their horizons, to give them a fuller knowledge of the peoples of the world.

Well, I'll try to keep up here,although my memory is going fast. Good to get to know you.

charley

Sounds interesting. My wife is from Casteluzzo, which is only about a 15 minute drive from San Vito lo Capo so she on the opposite side of the island. However, we stayed a couple of days in Taormino, and on the evening of the first day Etna erupted, and that was quite a sight.

I was not in either Lebanon or Jordan but was right next to both in 1991 and 2001, and I worked for a short while on a dig just n.w. of Jerusalem whereas Zealots had hidden in a cistern during the Roman occupation. My wife dug up a pretty good size of Jewish pottery about the size of your hand, and bragged about that to me as I only came up with fragments the size of a nickel or less.

 

[corynski]

Sounds interesting. My wife is from Casteluzzo, which is only about a 15 minute drive from San Vito lo Capo so she on the opposite side of the island. However, we stayed a couple of days in Taormino, and on the evening of the first day Etna erupted, and that was quite a sight.

I was not in either Lebanon or Jordan but was right next to both in 1991 and 2001, and I worked for a short while on a dig just n.w. of Jerusalem whereas Zealots had hidden in a cistern during the Roman occupation. My wife dug up a pretty good size of Jewish pottery about the size of your hand, and bragged about that to me as I only came up with fragments the size of a nickel or less.

Good Morning Metis

I often wonder if I would have had the patience to do serious excavation work. I do remember seeing the work of the early moundbuilders in Ohio, serpent mound being one of the more famous. And if the truth be told, it was a girlfriend in college that was taking an anthropology course that got me interested. In 1966 and 1967 when I was there in Catania, Mt. Etna was not erupting, so we could go right up to the edge and look inside. It was like the surface of the moon up there, and in the summer when the Sirocco came across the waters from north Africa, we headed up the mountain for the cool air and a cold beer. On a later visit I remember how two or three lava flows had begun on the north slope and were clearly visable from Taormina. Now I do feel old......

And I've tried to keep up reading D. Futuyma, E. Mayer, J. Diamond, T.Thompson, R. Hazen and many more. I'm captivated by the entire story of evolution and never tire of learning more. In around the late 1990's I remember reading Israel Finklestein's discussions of the excavations in Israel, and he felt that the dating was wrong and caused a stir. I believe T.Thompson was also part of the revisionist party. I think perhaps the greatest discoveries are yet to come.

I've had mixed feelings about coming to this site as everyone seems quite intelligent and well-read, and I didn't feel I had the depth of knowledge that appears here. And you've got me think about driving across Sicily again, what an amazing place. Were you ever at the catacombs in Palermo? Fascinating, they had a drying chamber built into one wall and when a body was dry it was hung along a wall, this wall for professors, another for judges, another for priests and so on. And Piazza Armerina (?), an old Roman hunting lodge inland from Siracusa, was interesting and contained the same urinal arrangement as was built into my grade school restrooms built in1919 - multiple commodes in a line which were flushed periodically by an asymetric bucket that filled continuously and then tipped to flush.

Cheers......

 

[metis]

Good Morning Metis

I often wonder if I would have had the patience to do serious excavation work. I do remember seeing the work of the early moundbuilders in Ohio, serpent mound being one of the more famous. And if the truth be told, it was a girlfriend in college that was taking an anthropology course that got me interested. In 1966 and 1967 when I was there in Catania, Mt. Etna was not erupting, so we could go right up to the edge and look inside. It was like the surface of the moon up there, and in the summer when the Sirocco came across the waters from north Africa, we headed up the mountain for the cool air and a cold beer. On a later visit I remember how two or three lava flows had begun on the north slope and were clearly visable from Taormina. Now I do feel old......

And I've tried to keep up reading D. Futuyma, E. Mayer, J. Diamond, T.Thompson, R. Hazen and many more. I'm captivated by the entire story of evolution and never tire of learning more. In around the late 1990's I remember reading Israel Finklestein's discussions of the excavations in Israel, and he felt that the dating was wrong and caused a stir. I believe T.Thompson was also part of the revisionist party. I think perhaps the greatest discoveries are yet to come.

I've had mixed feelings about coming to this site as everyone seems quite intelligent and well-read, and I didn't feel I had the depth of knowledge that appears here. And you've got me think about driving across Sicily again, what an amazing place. Were you ever at the catacombs in Palermo? Fascinating, they have a drying chamber built into one wall and when a body was dry it was hung along a wall, this one for professors, another for judges, another for priests and so on.

I wasn't in the catacombs there but was in Rome. As far as Finkelstein is concerned, he's quite headstrong and all too often jumps to conclusions based on little evidence, but generally speaking I agree with him more than not. His debate with Hershel Shanks that was in BAR magazine is a classic, imo, and Finkelsein had to back off on some of his statements. Diamond I really like.

A friend of mine co-runs an on-going dig at the edge of the highlands n.n.w. of Jerusalem, and what they've found there is fascinating, and he gave a three day seminar with pictures several years ago at our synagogue. The dating goes all the way back to the early 1st Temple period whereas the Philistines were occupying an area not far away but was quite distinct in terms of what was found at both locations. It's amazing how close they were, but we have to remember that movement was very limited back then, plus the groups were quite small.

 

[corynski]

I wasn't in the catacombs there but was in Rome. As far as Finkelstein is concerned, he's quite headstrong and all too often jumps to conclusions based on little evidence, but generally speaking I agree with him more than not. His debate with Hershel Shanks that was in BAR magazine is a classic, imo, and Finkelsein had to back off on some of his statements. Diamond I really like.

A friend of mine co-runs an on-going dig at the edge of the highlands n.n.w. of Jerusalem, and what they've found there is fascinating, and he gave a three day seminar with pictures several years ago at our synagogue. The dating goes all the way back to the early 1st Temple period whereas the Philistines were occupying an area not far away but was quite distinct in terms of what was found at both locations. It's amazing how close they were, but we have to remember that movement was very limited back then, plus the groups were quite small.

I think there has to be a place for the extremes, the old and the new, to keep the knowledge flowing. Finklestein apparently suggested a radical shift in the dating in the 1990's because they had '...misdated crucial evidence. Finds attributed to the 10th century B.C. when David and Solomon ruled, he says, should really be dated almost a century later, to Ahab's time." And on and on..... the revisionists suggesting that the Bible is not a history book, etc. But my own problem was one of concentration, I think it took more concentration than I was capable of at the time, again, typical I guess of the ADHD personality. But such a noble cause..... digging up the past. And yes, I've read BAR for years, wouldn't miss it......

So do you think you'll go back to Israel? I think my traveling days are about over, it's becoming quite an effort. And I'm addicted to my computer, which of course I could take anywhere. My concerns lately are centered around the monetary expansion our government, and the world, persists upon..... the history I read tells me that such persistence of debt creation can be disastrous for the entire world. Such tremendous amounts of debt to manage, and all that. You're fortunate to have your northern refuge, just as I am thankful for my country location.

 

[metis]

So do you think you'll go back to Israel? I think my traveling days are about over, it's becoming quite an effort. And I'm addicted to my computer, which of course I could take anywhere. My concerns lately are centered around the monetary expansion our government, and the world, persists upon..... the history I read tells me that such persistence of debt creation can be disastrous for the entire world. Such tremendous amounts of debt to manage, and all that. You're fortunate to have your northern refuge, just as I am thankful for my country location.

No, I'm not going back but I sure would love to. My wife is a cardiac patient, and we're even afraid to go to Sicily. Plus, we enjoy our places here near Detroit and in the U.P. so much that we need not travel any more to distant places.

Yes, I am concerned about our debt as well, but less concerned about here than what's happening in Europe and China that could also affect us here. Our legacy costs here must be dealt with as our population ages, but such moves are not going to be very popular. Also I'm very concerned about the weakening of unions that leave most American workers at the mercy of employers and investors that place profits over people. We're slipping in the direction of what I call a "potato republic", which is just a northern version of a "banana republic".