I Knew a Man, Who Had a Friend, Who Was a Friend of Abraham Lincoln

By G. E. Shuman

Dear Readers, I wrote this column several years ago. It’s about time, and connections.  If you have read it, I hope you will again.

I knew a man, who had a friend, who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln. I guess that makes me pretty old. But, facts are facts, and facts are often strange things.  And, no, this is not a riddle, with some strange twisting of words like the old brain-teaser “I’m my own ‘grandpa.”, or anything like that. Neither am I writing here about some clairvoyant or supernatural experience of someone, supposedly, speaking with the dead. I don’t believe that that is possible. The simple truth is, I knew a man, who had a friend, who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln. And, yes, I mean THE Abraham Lincoln. I have thought of this fact during times when my family has visited Washington D.C. Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking up at that famous statue of my favorite president, it is difficult for me to believe that someone I knew well, knew a close friend of his, well. Read on, if you’d like to learn how this strange fact is possible.

To me, it is fascinating to look down the imaginary, or not-so imaginary tunnel of time, into the dusty past. I envision a well-worn, dry-leaf scattered path, into years of yesterdays, and decades of things which no longer are. In the mind’s eye, there is a thread which somehow connects us to that past, as long as consciousness continues. It is a fiber of reality, of ‘now’, tying us to what once was. Something about the fact that the memory of this cord will be broken at my own death is why I write this now. For some reason, it is important to me that the dusty, mildew-y, musty years of the ‘back then’ and their connection to the ‘now’, are not forgotten.

The truth is, I have always been fascinated by the idea of time. Another truth is that I’m not quite sure that time actually exists, other than in our own observance of the endurance of the things and people around us. I am reminded of the old riddle: “If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?“ Likewise, for instance, in deep space, where there is nothing to wear out, or get old and dirty, and no clock to measure the moments, does time exist, or need to? I guess I’m not sure. Things happened ‘in the past’ we say, or will happen ‘in the future’. Things are thought of as being either behind, or ahead of us, as this is how our minds tend to work. I have always wondered where those things ‘really’ are, right now. (So, have I given you a headache yet?)

And now for my slight thread of a connection, only three people ‘back‘, to President Lincoln. You might have heard of a very diminutive man with the stage name of Tom Thumb. You may wish to ‘Google’ Mr. Thumb, if you have not heard of him. Being a famous performer, Tom Thumb, whose real name was Charles Sherwood Stratton, and his little wife, the former Lavinia Warren, were good friends of Mr. Lincoln, and were frequent guests of his at the White House. Mr. Thumb died in 1883, at the age of 77, but Lavinia lived on until 1919. During her later years, around the turn of the century, Mrs. Thumb frequented the small town of Palermo Maine, and happened to stay there at the Shuman House, a hotel which was operated by my great grandparents. My grandfather was a young boy of about ten at the time, and was in charge of caring for the guests’ horses; a chore he disliked very much. During this time, he and his mother got to be good friends with Lavinia (Warren) Thumb…

And now that thread of time extends out, all the way to us, and to now. Gramp Shuman lived well into his nineties, and I knew him for many years. Therefore, and without trickery or exaggeration, I knew a man, who had a friend who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln. 

Eleon M. Shuman

Charles and Lavinia Stratton

(Mr. and  Mrs. Tom Thumb)

Abraham Lincoln  

 

Getting Rattled

By G. E. Shuman

            I’m sure that, when I was an infant, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and rocks were soft, I must have played with rattles, just as babies do today. Of course, my rattles probably were nothing like those clasped in the tiny hands of babies now. Mine, if not made from gourds or pterodactyl eggs, were probably at least made of hard, quite breakable plastic, and filled with small pebbles, rattlesnake tails, or whatever else the manufacturers in Hong Kong were allowed to put in baby rattles at the time. I don’t think anyone thought about child product safety laws back then. I know I didn’t, but then, I was a baby.

            Several evenings a week I get to take care of Nahla, my seven-month-old granddaughter, and I love the times that I have with her.  To me she seems very advanced for her age, and she is beautiful. (After all, she’s my grandchild, so you already knew those two things.) It is good that our living room floor has become filled with infant toys, because Nahla is also quite active, and, although she can’t walk yet, and doesn’t really crawl, somehow gets around and plays with most of those toys, every day.

            One recent night the aforementioned intelligent and beautiful young child was in my lap, and had her own rattle in her hand.  This rattle bears no resemblance at all to one I would have played with, those many years ago. Yes, it is made of some type of plastic, as mine must have been, and as almost everything is today, (including most parts of your car), but hers looks like it would survive being run over by a bulldozer.  I think it would be easier to cut a granite block from a Vermont quarry with a butter knife, than to get the small plastic balls that bounce around within Nahla’s rattle to ever come out of it. That baby toy, being military-grade tough, also has three large plastic handles evenly spaced around the center of it, for the baby to conveniently grab. 

As we sat there together, Nahla began vigorously shaking the rattle up and down.  Her excitement grew as she shook the toy harder and harder.  Suddenly, the rattle stopped shaking, and Nahla started. This was followed by a loud cry, and a look of great pain on that pretty little face. My granddaughter, in her excitement, had whacked herself in the forehead with the very toy that was supposed to bring her happiness.

            Soon Grampy had her calmed down, but then made the mistake of giving the rattle back to her. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea.  I realized it wasn’t, after she had succeeded in whacking her head two more times with the rattle, with the same painful results as the first.

 I comforted her again, after moving the stupid rattle out of her sight. (I don’t know why I call something stupid after it makes ME look stupid.)  I then began to think about what had just happened.  It came to me that Nahla had been put in charge of, had been given the use of, something she was unable to handle. Although the item was made to be perfectly safe, it was not safe for her, at least not quite yet. It was harmless, but had still harmed her, I realized. Worse, perhaps, than that, and this thought made me feel terrible, she had been given the object back two more times before a ‘responsible’ adult who loved her decided that she shouldn’t have it.

That very moment Nahla taught her old grandpa something that he hopes he never forgets. That is that there may be things in life, both in yours and in mine, that we might be better off without, until and unless we can handle them. Those things may be habits, attitudes, ambitions, or even worthwhile projects. They could be anything that we keep hitting ourselves in the head with and not understanding why this happens, or why we just keep going back for more. Maybe some of those things should be stopped, or taken out of our hands, before we hurt ourselves or others with them, again.

I’m not sure why the idea for this column came to me as it did, but I hope it helps someone out there. I do know that I recently learned a lesson from a seven-month-old baby. It is one that I should try to apply to my own life.  I learned that it is wise to put down harmful things, and to not get rattled.