more endless drivel from the factory thereof ~

ugh. i still feel like crap. i just need a day off, but there's no hope of that.

maybe i can sleepwalk through the next couple of days. in the meantime the comfort foods of the day:

eel roll sushi
squid salad
strawberries
and sipping diet coke through a licorice straw

last night i caught myself reading A Century of Moravian Sisters: A Record of Christian Community Life by elizabeth lehman myers. it had a very random light-hearted anecdote in it about Poppet's typically oblivious well-intentioned bad form. i don't get the sense that Poppet was a bookish geek, but he certainly seemed easy to kick around when he wasn't around the comfort of his own people or had someone to back him up. he let Wads put him in the provost job, but finally got fed up with Czar NastyOwlFace threatening to fire him and quit. but he stuck it out for nine months, which, i think, says a lot about his character and his loyalties. and though it's clear from his memoir that he didn't get along with the Czar, he tempers his mild (almost non) criticism with a generous admission that the Czar was effective at his job.

a last smattering of final facts:

Wads appointing Poppet to the provost at the tender age of 25 was unheard of. if the Czar bullied him, i've no doubt his youth was part of the cause of it.

Wads bears a disturbing resemblance to Poppet's father. Poppet later named his second son after the general. Since Poppet's father had just recently died, there's no doubt in my mind, given Wads's temperament and generosity, that the relationship between the two was very paternal. A lot of people blamed the SoS for indirectly causing Wads's death at Chancellorville in '64. isn't that ironic! if i wanted to make this story more machiavellian, that would be the means by which to do it.

back in bethlehem, one source called Poppet "enterprising and public-spirited". he built a bridge, founded a newspaper, and chaired committees. i keep telling myself it's a cultural thing; that he disliked Washington and disliked politics and preferred adventures from which he could always return home.

i also found out that he and Scully were acquaintances (once again, small world). i thought this would make for an inneresting scene, but i tried writing it this morning and mostly flailed around in verbiage. chatty chatty chatty.

anyway, i need to stop the reading madness. i have to wait for Hanty's letterbooks and will study those carefully, but otherwise it's time to offically close the door on the research. i think i have a sufficient handle on Poppet, which was my main concern in the beginning of all of this. i didn't want to make the mistake i think adicks made in A Court for Owls by showing Poppet to be uninvested, irritable, and unfeeling (qualities i can't begin to imagine in this man).

even though i think Poppet was frustrated, i think he continued to press as best he could. and let's face it, he had two of the worst cases of the eight, so you gotta give him credit. i don't think he failed because he was incompetent. i think he failed because there was no way to win.

kobayashi maru.



found this picture of Poppet recently
dunno when it was taken,
prolly shortly after the war