Kosh

It would seem that fig trees have a tendancy to inspire unreliable stories from antiquity.... :devil3:

spin

Which reminds me of the joke about the man who wanted to go to a masquerade party as Adam, so he sent away to a costume company for a suitable leaf, but when it came he embarrassedly thought it was too small. He therefore sent it back for a larger one to cover his requirements, which arrived, but sadly it too was too small to cover his requirements. In this manner he went through the full range of leaves without success, so he wrote to ask for a custom leaf to cover his requirements. The costume company wrote back saying that they didn't make custom costumes. It recommended that he throw his requirements over his shoulder and go as a petrol pump.


snip

Amaleq13

If the story can be changed from the Professor to you to us, how much more changes might have taken place between the actual events and the retelling in his 80's? How much even more between that retelling and the Professor's retelling of the retold tale half a century later?

rlogan

You did not supply the age of your professor. Vital to the problem.

Bede supplies a birthdate of 1938, making your prof about 67 now. He was 16 in 1954. A 90 year old friend would be born in 1864. So he was one year old when he was picking figs?

Because you said he was "tending" to the gardens, we are not talking about a five or six year old. So even 95 is not an age that makes this story possible.

We are therefore talking about a man more like nearly a hundred or more years old. Even high nineties would be so remarkable that your friend would have said that instead of "80's or 90's".

As you relate it, it is an unreliable story.

Peter Kirby

I didn't remember any exact numbers that Dr. Rietveld said in class. What I did remember was how Rietveld said that he had to have mother (emphasis original) drive him to see the old gentleman. I said 16, while Rietveld would have said 14. I don't believe that he said "80s or 90s"--that is what I said.

Here is the story as he relates it:

Talking with a Man who Knew Lincoln

I remember James F. Wheeler, 88, of Des Moines, Iowa. Shortly after the Des Moines Register published its front page article on my discovery of the last Lincoln photograph in 1952, I received a phone call. The voice on the other end told me that he had known Lincoln as a young boy when his father was Lincoln's gardener in Washington, DC. Would I like to come over for an afternoon visit to "talk Lincoln?" Of course I would!

He was a pleasant man and remembered vividly that "during Lincoln's administration my father was the White House gardener and I used to go with him quite often to the White House gardens -- two or three times a week." He observed, "Seems like people were more sociable than than they are now. I saw Mr. Lincoln many times. He told me, "He and my father were great friends" and that the President "used to play with me sometimes, for he was very fond of kids, and quite a joker."

Mr. Wheeler told me that there was a fig tree near the White House, and remembered that he used to help himself to them. "Mr. Lincoln would tease me about stealing his figs." He added, "My father would decorate the White House for all the official receptions, and he and my mother attended many of these functions."

His most poignant recollection of Lincoln concerned the martyred president's death. His father helped install the White House mourning decorations. He also remembered the search for John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin. "That was an exciting time in Washington," he said. "I remember the soldiers coming to our house one night as they did to most houses in Washington, looking for Booth." He recalled that it was about two o'clock in the morning, and he was "scared nearly to death."

Then he told me how the Lincoln coffin photograph in the paper had brought back memories. "My father took me to the Capitol for a last look at Lincoln. The president was lying in state in the Rotunda, "and my father lifted me up so as to see him better." He said, "Father was all broken up after Lincoln's death and decided then that he might as well leave Washington." And they moved to Iowa.

Peter: It seems that the number of 88 (on the web page) is wrong.

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Bede, "taking down every word" and "taking down royal decrees" are two decidedly different things.

Vorkosigan

Bede

And, no doubt, you find the idea that every word spoken in Parliament, in Cabinet, in Committee and when official foreign visitors are met equally absurd. But it happens - I've seen Hansard.

Ptolemy is portrayed talking to foreign envoys at an official banquet. That would almost certainly be minuted.

B

Eldarion Lathria

The story of Lincoln and the boy reminds me of a line from an Ambrose Bierce column, "Another doddering ancient has gotten old enough to remember George Washington."

Ancient systems of stenography existed. Every official public pronouncement of Ptolemy the king (whichever one of the Ptolemies it was) would have been taken down exactly. The king's words at a banquet for an envoy would be taken in digest, so that later, if the envoy claimed he had promised something, he could answer if he had or not. Casual chatter would NOT be taken down.

Eldarion Lathria

rlogan

Sure thing, Peter.

I think we're already learning about what happens in oral transmission of a story, just one step removed from it.

Removing the idea that he was "tending" the garden and lowering your prof's age to 14 at the same time makes it more plausible.

But as you point out in your post, the age 88 has to either be incorrect or the story is. That puts the birth of Fleetwood at 1864 if your prof was born in 1938 and he met him at age 14. Something's amiss...

best to you too.

Family Man

Vork, Bede is right, though you also have to consider the nature of the text. If the sober tone is maintained and the events related dispassionately, it would have to be considered reliable. Of course, if it starts discussing the ancient equivalent of alien abductions, then the entire first paragraph is put into a different light.

It's one thing to be skeptical; it's quite another to overdo it.