Thorn in the Paw

Ancient city-states of the Peleponnese

Have you been daydreaming of exotic places to go when we're sprung from this long term of house arrest (and the rest of the world will let us travel there again)?  Well, I've got one for you.

You would think that since Greece has been heavily visited by tourists since even the Roman era it has been pretty much been traveled, explored and photographed.  But take a look at those three strangely shaped peninsulas than hang from the southern shore of the Peleponnese.  The central of these three prongs is formed by the ridge of the Taygetus Mountains and is known as the Mani.  It was still mostly inaccessible when Patrick Lee Fermor boldly went there in 1958 despite no good roads and its fearsome reputation.  The area had been forgotten for centuries before he published Mani, Travels in the Southern Peleponnese.  He and his wife loved it so much they settled permanently in 1964.

The unoccupied remains of stone tower houses were to be found all over, and as in other lands beset by violence like Corsica, Sicily, the Balkans and the Caucasus, they mutely made it clear this was no Elysium or Acadia.  Other than column parts and building stones that have been continuously recycled, nothing remains of ancient Grecian civilization.

Although the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople in 1453, a fragment of the Byzantine Empire held on in the Mani until 1460.  However well they had secured so much of the known world, the Ottomans never did effect much control in this peninsula, either military or civilian.  They made a big push to do so in 1477 and suffered a large defeat from the locals and Venetian mercenary forces in 1481, but when they renewed their efforts, the mercenaries had to flee by ship.  Despite this, the Mani always remained a thorn in the paw of the mighty beast that was the Ottoman realm.

Year after year of war between the Turks and Venetians and local allies with both or neither left a devastated landscape and a poor economy.  Overpopulation was a constant drain despite the worsening lack of resources, and the Maniots emigrated worldwide (even to Florida).  Those who remained lived with banditry, constant vendettas (fueled by a persistent superstition that the dead, if not avenged, would return to haunt their families) and pirate attacks.  As elsewhere in the Mediterranean, they moved their towns and villages to the interior, away from the dangerous coasts.  Another way to deal with raiders was to become pirates themselves:  as a visitor noted, "boats...abounded in every creek...long and narrow like canoes, with ten...even thirty men armed with rifle and pistols..." 

These unbowed people could be an example for us on living through difficult times.

Friends of the Devil

Sailors ashore do it.
Students do it.
Good ol' boys in pickup trucks do it.

And bored aristocrats do it.  Getting up to mischief, that is.

In 1718, Duke Philip Wharton began the Hell-Fire Club in London, starting something which not only spread to Scotland and Ireland, but continues today.  The Club met at the Greyhound tavern and at members' homes on Sundays; it was meant to be a satire of the usual gentleman's club where cultural discussions were politely held. Its purpose was rather to shock and ridicule.  The Duke was called "a drunkard, a rioter and a rake," but was also a member of Parliament and quite literate.  We know the names of very few club members and what they were really up to except that they were all peers of the realm. Accused by political enemies of "horrid impieties," he was removed from Parliament.  The Club disbanded in 1721.

Sir Francis, up for a good time

Baron Francis Dashwood picked up on the idea, and led meetings of libertine companions at the George and Vulture tavern in Castle Court, London.  A creative sort, Dashwood coined their motto ("Do what thou wilt") and gave the society the grandiose title of The Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe.  Women were welcome, free-spirited ones at least, which was unheard of at the time.  They could not attend at the tavern, so the group moved the festivities to Francis' home outside the city. Over the years, some distinguished visitors risked their reputation by attending, among them royals and Benjamin Franklin (in 1758).

The Hell-Fire Cave is open for tourists today

Dashwood had caves and tunnels excavated in a hill above West Wycombe, decorating the walls with scandalous pictures and the gardens outside with statues of pagan gods.  Chambers for meetings were named The Banqueting Hall and the Inner Temple.  A small underground stream inside was titled the River Styx.  It was best to keep these things a little out of sight (and all records were burned in 1774), because the general population and the royal government were decidedly more strict and pious; the last witch execution in Great Britain was as recent as 1727.

The Dublin Hell-Fire Club looks the part

Dublin, Ireland, can claim to be the most notorious associate in the Hell-Fire Club tradition, with the worst reputation.  "A brace of monsters, blasphemers and Bacchanalians" was what Jonathan Swift had to say about them in the 1740s.  There is still one at Trinity College and others at two Irish universities today.  With costumes, mock ceremonies and life-risking drinking, the venerable Skull and Bones at Yale appears to be quite the same thing also.

Now, behave!

A Capital Idea, or, Playing Real Life Monopoly

Pivotal moments in commercial history:

The first transnational corporations take off in the 17th Century, financed by share sales:  Hudson's Bay  Company (once the largest land owner in the world) and the Dutch and British East India Companies...

Charles "Lucky" Luciano, ably assisted by Meyer Lansky, organizes crime as a business with a board of directors and semi-autonomous branches in the United States and Cuba...

Harry Sonneborn brings the struggling Ray Kroc a brilliant idea...

"We are not basically in the food business; we are in the real estate business.  The only reason we sell hamburgers is because they are the greatest producers of revenue from which our tenants can pay us rent."

Mr. Sonneborn was exactly right and was rewarded with the presidency of the corporation (he stayed for ten years until Kroc irritated him too much).  Today, McDonald's real estate assets are pegged at $37.7 billion.  Originally, the plan was to buy and own cheap land freed up for development potential by the newly built Interstates (at exits), but a lack of the large amount of capital required shifted the grand strategy to leasing land, then subletting it to franchisees.  Initially they charged the franchise holders 20% over their own lease cost, raising that to 40% later. And the locations had to pay all the insurance and taxes, as well as a $45,000 up front fee and 4% of gross sales.

Costs for construction and equipment for a new McDonald's range from $1 million to $2.2 million, depending on location and size.  Half of that amount, up to $750,000, must be cash, that is, non-borrowed funds.  The bait for all this is an average annual net profit for the operator of $150,000.  That amounts to working for free for five years, but actually longer given the corporations' fees listed above.  A McDonald's general manager would make $315,000 gross, on average, during a similar seven year period  Now, that job would probably send you to an early grave, but you would do better than the owner by far.

Today, McDonald's stock was at $199.36 a share.

Westward with Petunia

Over the course of 382 posts here, there seem to have been a few recurring themes:  Odd Places and Quirky Corners of History; The Occasional Thought and Plucky Women.  If we just continued with the last one, we'd never run out of stories. And there are a lot of them about women who headed out to cross the continental United States in the very early days of automobiling.  It's surprising how many, considering how bad the cars and tires were, and the roads were not only bad, often they weren't even there.  Intrepid drivers had to cut fences out West, ford streams and roll across farm fields.  Especially in the Spring, there was mud to contend with.  Either cars got stuck up to their hubs or they just slid off sideways into ditches. Farmers pulled them out, even more convinced about the superiority and utility of horses.  In fact, around 1919, there were 17 million horses and only 13 miles of Federally financed roadway.  Towns were isolated by the lack of roads between them, and the cost of transporting farm products was many times higher than in more developed European nations.  Services were absent, as was even gravel; dirt roads were graded by horses pulling a log crosswise behind them.  Did any of that stop the enthusiastic ladies eager to experience freedom, something new and amazing and revel in their self-reliance?  Alice Ramsey in her Maxwell, Winifred Dixon (Westward Hoboes, 1921), Letitia Stockett, Kathryn Hulme and Emily Post took the challenge on and cheerily wrote about their adventures.

Emily Post?  Mrs. Post, before she was the Emily Post, took her son out of Harvard to drive from New York to San Francisco  in 1915.  Overburdened at first (being new to this thing), they had to jettison weighty items like a silver service.  Unlike most such early travelers, she preferred nice hotels to camping, and reviewed each city like a newly published novel, approving heartily of Chicago and Cleveland ("great coffee") and not so much about lesser sites ("bad food in queer places").  She did, however, have to complete the journey via train from the Southwest to California after her European automobile gave its all.

Not only Emily Post went on to fame after her youthful adventure.  In 1923, Kathryn Hulme (above) logged 6000 miles on the same New York to San Francisco jaunt, detouring frequently, even up into British Columbia, with her friend Petunia ("Tuny" for short).  Unfortunately, since Ms. Hulme's 1928 chronicle How's the Road is unavailable except on microfilm at a university, we can't find out anything more about someone with such a delightful name.  The two pursued a life of freedom and new experiences that usually only men could at that time, although that was to change dramatically during the decade.  They explored a blacksmith's forge in Montana, camped with cowboys and visited traveling salesmen's hotels where women were not expected.  In fact, although they took a pistol along anticipating danger, the men along the way were chivalrous (and curious).  The women they asked directions of, however, often showed their "rank disapproval."  Not ever apologetic and fully aware she was being rebellious, Kathryn laughed it off.

Her life was a continuation of the adventure.  After attending the University of California and Columbia, she was a reporter, an expatriate writer in Paris, a ship welder again in California during the War and then relocated displaced persons after 1945 for a U.N. agency in Bavaria.  At age 71, she went on safari in east Africa. Ms. Hulme is best known for The  Nun's Story, which was a best seller and  made into a movie starring Audrey Hepburn.  That success allowed her to live out her years on Kauai, Hawaii.  With less mud, I hope.