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September 02, 2021
Est.1878
The Cosmos Club
Posted by JD Hull at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2021
Ozarks Boy Makes Good.
John Daniel Hull, II (1900 - 1988).
Always an honor to write about the Hulls. There is so much to tell. Dad’s four still-living first cousins—after P&G’s Big John D. Hull III died in December 2012— gave me wonderful written records about 9 American generations of German Lutheran Hulls/Holls in Virginia and later Missouri since 1750. To Philly via Rotterdam. I even have the name of the ship and its captain.
Hulls. I know all their names. I have most of their stories. Many inspiring. Some heartbreaking. Some human. I keep writing snippets. Wish sometimes my beloved law practice wasn’t so taxing. I’ve barely started.
Dr. J. Dan Hull was my grandfather. And damn he’s missed.
I spent most of his last 15 or so Thanksgivings southern Missouri with him and my grandmother Alene, who died at 101 in 1998. Dan Hull. Soft spoken. Poised. Elegant. Amazingly accomplished. Author, educator, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations mainstay. DC’s Cosmos Club. Ozark boy who wanted to go to Yale and much more. Degrees from Universities of Chicago and Michigan, too. First American Hull/Holl to my knowledge to attend college.
He could even sing. He dressed elegantly. Spoke slowly. Alene said after he died that he had “the prettiest hands.” He taught me things no one else could teach. Like “beware of the Lilly White, Dan.”
He did it all.
I have his books.
I have his melancholy.
I miss him every day.
More to come on Grandpop.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2021
Dog Days of August 2021
Summer Heat. Day in day out every day. It never stops. Especially, lately, we complain. But it’s been going on a while. A long while.
In fact, the six week period between July 15 and September 1 was named by the both the ancient Greeks and the early Romans after Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky. In the Mediterranean region, the notion of linking that star to oppressively hot summer weather dates back well over 2700 years. 27 hot summer centuries.
And these Dog Days of Summer wasn't always just about the heat.
If you are feeling not just hot but a bit strange, maybe confused or otherwise out of sorts this time of year--and you're not too much of a whack-job or flake to begin with--you may be on to something. Dog days of summer was also associated with Chaos: "the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics and phrensies." Brady's Clavis Calendarium, 1813.
Chaos had a good side, too. Just two thousand years ago, and after he had given up the study of law that his family had foisted on him, Ovid (43 B.C.-17 A.D.), the playful poet writing during Octavian's long reign, gave us a more famous--and less grim--take on Chaos in Book I of Metamorphoses. Chaos, he thought, might be the best possible starting point for anything worthwhile. But you will need to read Ovid yourself. Preferably alone--in a cool, calm, quiet and well-lighted place.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)