Monday, November 30, 2009

We're in Florida, We're in Florida !

Surviving a drive down I-75 on a holiday weekend is no small feat! We did get to Palm City in one piece - headed straight to the cottage to unload the car, but not to unpack yet.

Got to Laurie's a little after 3 p.m. just as Laurie was getting ready to go pick up Dylan from school. So we all went! The car line was long, and he spotted us long before we reached him, and he was jumping up and down - very excited - that's nice to see :)

Chip was at work. The other three of us did homework, chatted, loaded the car back up with Amazon boxes to be wrapped for Christmas, planned, chatted, ate Laurie's low-fat weight watcher's dinner, and chatted.

We'll spend the night here tonight and unpack at the cottage in the morning.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Hixson, TN

Hixson is a suburb of Chatanooga, and it'w a little bit (7 miles) off I-75. Any port in a storm and we were glad to be there.

On the way to Hixson, we had stopped for lunch in Corbin, Kentucky. There was a cache really nearby, so of course...well...you can fill in the blanks!
November 28 by basswoodbend (2461 found)
We are on a road trip to spend December with the worlds best grandson. We pulled off the race track for lunch and the Nuvi dinged. Can't pass up a quick cache.
The first time we visited Corbin was about fifty years ago when we used to spend Spring Break camping in the Smokies. The interstate was not completed then, the only route was US 25. When I-75 opened,it cut hours off the trip. Thanks for the memory break.


Caching in Corbin

Friday, November 27, 2009

Off to Florida (Well, Piqua, OH)

Yesterday, for the first time ever, we ate Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. (Well, we did go to a Thanksgiving luau once on Maui when Michigan was playing in the Maui Invitational.)

We went to Minerva's, and it was very nice. No yummy dressing, but great desserts!

This morning we go a good early start on our road trip to Florida. There was snow in the air when we left this morning. Luckily, we too I-75 south instead of taking 127 to Jackson and across on I-94. There were accidents, one fatal, and major backups on 94 this morning. We missed it all, and breezed right down US-23.

The motel in Piqua was really interesting. It was actually part of a mall - there was a door to the mall right in the lobby of the motel! Another first.



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Winterized

Here's visual evidence that Dick has everything ready for winter and snow:









Sunday, November 22, 2009

Kanitz Ethnology ??

While just googling around the other day, looking for my German roots, I made a fascinating and sad discovery. It seems that some Kanitzes in Germany and Czechoslovakia were of Jewish descent. Some of them converted to Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Many others practiced their Jewish faith. Several of their descendants were sent to concentration camps during World War II, and many, many died there. Their stories are heart-wrenching. The Kanitz holocaust survivors are haunted by that experience for the rest of their lives.

I have no idea if these Jewish Kanitzes are related to me in any way or not, but it seems likely. I know that my great grandfather, Wilhelm Kanitz, lived in Leipzig and sailed to New Orleans from Hamburg in the mid-18th century. He was a Christian his whole life. However, many of the holocaust victims were from Leipzig. So somewhere in the past there could have been a connection.

The stories are extremely interesting to me, and probably to no one else. I'm hoping I'll be able to track some of the salient facts down someday.

Here's part of the story of Miklos Kanitz. The whole story is very gripping - the woman who hid his family had a son who was a member of the ArrowCross, a military group that helped to round up Jews! His mother had to be so brave to hide a Jewish family!

Miklos Samual Kanitz (1938-2006) was a Hungarian-Canadian Holocaust survivor living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He narrowly escaped being transported to the German death camp at Auschwitz in June 1944 at the age of six, because a neighbor, whose son was a member of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party, risked her life to hide Kanitz, his mother, and his brother in her potato cellar for seven months until the end of the war.

In 1946, Kanitz's father became secretary of his local Communist Party and later still, deputy-minister of industry for Hungary. In his role as party secretary, his job was to oversee the post-war judicial system in his area. The neighbor who had saved his family appealed to him for the life of her own son, who was due to be hanged for his activities with the Arrow Cross Party. Kanitz's father refused to spare him, because, he said, "saving three Jews does not wash the blood off someone who has probably killed hundreds."


Felix Kanitz was a famous ethnographer of Slavic peoples. He traveled through all of the Slavic countries, recording their customs. etc. He was an artist, and drew wonderful pen and ink drawings of the Slavs and their lifestyles.


Felix Philipp Kanitz (Bulgarian and Serbian Cyrillic: Феликс Филип Каниц) (2 August 1829-8 January 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian naturalist, geographer, ethnographer, archaeologist and author of travel notes.

Kanitz was born in Budapest to a rich Jewish family and enrolled in art in the University of Vienna in 1846, at the age of seventeen. Born a Jew, he later converted to Christianity.[1]


Lammel Kanitz became quite successful. The story of his courtship of his crippled wife is really very romantic! I guess I'll have to buy the book.

A conversation with Edith’s physician reveals that the man Hofmiller so admires was in fact born “a keen-eyed, narrow-chested little Jewish lad” named Lämmel Kanitz. Canny, thrifty, and somewhat of an autodidact, Kanitz learned to make money, pulling off his biggest coup in an unscrupulous real estate deal. Though he’d taken advantage of a naïve woman, he later felt a good deal of guilt at the way he had swindled her out of her fortune. In the end, “he was, rather, in spite of himself, taken unawares by an emotion that was genuine, and, strangely enough, remained genuine. Out of this absurd courtship was born an unusually happy marriage”—and a new life; baptized, Kanitz purchased the privilege of changing his name to Herr Lajos von Kekesfalva.


Lammel's real name was Leopold Kanitz. His fascinating story can be found in a book by Stefan Zweig called Beware of Pity.

This little town in Moravia is actually named Kanitz (Kounice translates to Kanitz in German.)
DOLNI KOUNICE (Ger. Kanitz; Heb. קוניץ), small town in Moravia, Czech Republic. Jews were living there from the end of the 14th century. A "Jewish judge" is mentioned in 1581. The synagogue was destroyed by the Swedes in 1643; rebuilt immediately, it existed until the Holocaust.


Ernst Kanitz was a composer and an impresario. I found a reference to him in another musician's obituary.
He soon made his debut as a professional concert artist, successfully managed by Ernst Kanitz, a discerning impresario who was later to perish in the Holocaust.


This town in Hungary had a least one Jewish family named Kanitz. In the whole town, there was only one survivor of the Holocaust.

Dunapentele, a small town in the district of Fejér, Hungary, is about 70 km south of Budapest, 46° 59' N 18° 56', and 50 km from Székesfehérvár, a larger city with the population of 3,981 (1941). What makes this particular book different from other Memorial books is the fact that it was not written by survivors, as there was only one survivor from those deported, but by the residents of Dunapentele, in memory of those that lived amoung them. Most of the contributions were made by residents who where young children and young adults at the time. They are short sketches almost like a glimpse into the past.

Kánitz family
My mother was their domestic. She loved to be there. They liked her very much as well. As we entered the shop, Madame Ilus kissed me often and used to fill the pocket of my apron with sweets. Lax Jenõ, the dentist married their daughter, Lilike.


Another country heard from: on August 14, 1942, German soldiers killed Jews in the community of Lenin in Belarus. Among the victims were: KANITZ Sholem M Itka Four Children 223R which means Sholem and Itka Kanitz and their four children were killed.

I found the Kanitz name in a lengthy family tree of the Jewish Zerkowitz family. This entry doesn't explicitly say that Nathan is Jewish, but I'm betting he is.

!
84. Regine5 ZERKOWITZ (Leopold4, Jacob3 KOHN-ZERKOWITZ, Feitel (Feisch) (Franz)2, Juda Lobl
(Leopold)1) was born Abt. 1820 in Pressburg, Pozsony Co., Hungary. She married Nathan KANITZ Abt.
1836.
Notes for Nathan KANITZ:
Nathan Kanitz was born in Obuda and came to Pest (probably as a child) in 1821. In 1837, he is seen as
an employee of Emanuel Boscovitz of Pest.
Children of Regine ZERKOWITZ and Nathan KANITZ are:
215 i. Rachel Tela6 KANITZ, born 25 Dec 1837 in Pest, Hungary.
216 ii. Amalia KANITZ, born 12 Oct 1842 in Pest, Hungary.
217 iii. Balvina KANITZ, born 22 Mar 1844 in Pest, Hungary.


Every once in a while I just get in the mood to check these things out. The Holocaust information is really too sad to do on a regular basis.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Hello Out There !

Things have been very quiet out here on the river since we got back from our road trip.

Dick has been super busy winterizing everything - our bushes are covered, our wood is stacked, deer fences are up, leaves are blown and bagged, and our machinery has been attended to. It's been very nice of Mother Nature to hold off on the snowing and blowing this far into November, very nice indeed. Yes indeed. It's been cold and frosty, but that's all.

I've been very busy spending money - buying presents is so much fun! My Christmas shopping is done, and it's not even Thanksgiving. Must be a first! I have the time because I'm retired, and I've been inspired to get it done before we leave for Florida. That's me - inspired and retired. It's entirely possible that I have spent too much money, but on the other hand, I had so darn much fun doing it! We are leaving for Florida the day after Thanksgiving.

We've been going to the gym every Tuesday and Thursday, and going to the Omelette Shoppe afterward, which cancels out whatever we do at the gym! At least we're staying relatively flexible. Sort of. Relatively.

Some caching has been done. Since Dennis moved to Louisiana, Dick has been helping him out by disabling and collecting the rathergohiking caches. He's brought several of them home, and he'll mail the log books to Dennis.

On November 4, we had lunch with Tim and Susie - then they went searching. I didn't go because of gout. It's always something!!! They found seven, I think. Here is part of Dick's report:

Our Geo-Excursion day began by meeting up with the Dino Duo for lunch, laughter, relaxation and reminisces at the Olive Garden. Eventually, we sent the wounded one back to the mansion to prepare a sumptuous repast of gourmet meatloaf while the other three mounted up in the Dinomobile to pursue a set of caches along the Manistee. Due to spending an unexpected amount of time seeking a 1 1/2 route to the first cache on our list, (Should we have been surprised when it has the name "Can't get there"?) we had run out of daylight by the time we dismounted to seek this cache. It was very dark. The Dino Dude gave me a spare flashlight to use. In the dark it was difficult to see the switch. I asked him to show me how to turn it on and he laughed and said "It is on, it's just a little dim". It did provide enough illumination to show the face of the GPS. Less than a 600 foot bushwack. Luckily, the Dudette found what might have been a path and so I put the GPS away until we got closer. Shortly we came upon the trail and turned toward the cache which was found fairly quickly. We signed and traded and made a call to the Basswood base announcing that we were turning for home. She told us that dinner was ready, come and get it. A quick run north to dinner and chocolate cake for desert, more laughter and reminisces and our caching day was done.


He's so good at capturing the spirit of the occasion! Makes you feel just like you were there. Almost.

The weekend of Nov. 7, we went down to Sniders for the weekend to watch Michigan lose the Mich/Purdue game. We had a great time while we were with the Sniders! The game, not so much. This has been a heart-breaking season. We're not going to the Ohio State game - Justin has 2 of our tickets, and we gave the other 2 to Dan F. I hope the weather is good for them this weekend. That's really about the only thing we can hope for. The outcome is a given.


On November 12 we had a great day doing cache maintenance in Leelanau County. Lake Michigan was at its bluest, most beautiful best. Only two caches were found, but we had a great lunch at Art's - which by itself is a good reason to take a ride in Leelanau!

Tim and Susie are coming over today - Dick will be meeting them for lunch at Don's Drive-In and then more geocaching. I'm not going because I am prepping for "the procedure which shall not be named" tomorrow. I'm on a liquid diet and doing the prep. {It's always something!}

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory

At halftime, the score was Michigan 24, Purdue 10.

The final score was Michigan 36, Purdue 38.

Photographs from Michigan Stadium: