tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75676822671720325312012-02-01T12:17:43.103-08:00Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.comBlogger231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-70035975514812730382012-02-01T12:03:00.000-08:002012-02-01T12:17:43.119-08:00

It is a humbling experience. The first time an editor returns an author's precious words to him with a few suggestions and comments, and he finds the first page covered in red blood. Fortunately for me, this was not my first time. Defensive instincts still rise, but when you have a good editor like I do--Kathy Carter--it's easy to overcome them and dig in, searching for solutions to the problems

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-86356120518906597892011-11-27T12:44:00.000-08:002011-11-27T13:40:34.359-08:00

David Kokernot's Reminiscences were published in the Gonzales Weekly Inquirer as five letters to the editor in 1878. Some were published again by the Inquirer in 1923, and the text of the first four is available online. Since these memoirs are the source of much misinformation propagated about Kokernot--information that my biography corrects--I am including their text as an appendix in that

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-71297887864173148002011-08-06T10:52:00.000-07:002011-08-07T08:18:23.317-07:00

Whoopee! As a result of the developmental advice of my editor, Kathy Carter, I have completed a major edit of David Kokernot's biography. By "major," I mean huge sections cut, others added, others relegated to appendices. I turned in the last of those rewrites to Kathy a couple of weeks ago. She has responded with many good suggestions for improvements, but they're not of the "delete this chapter

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-60010579050139916872011-02-20T11:38:00.000-08:002011-02-20T12:52:23.837-08:00

The search for burial places of Kokernot kin in New Orleans a few years ago brought me to Dispersed of Judah Cemetery on Canal Street, about three miles from the French Quarter. David Kokernot's brother, Louis, has a tombstone there. Louis's wife, Nancy; their children George Washington and Miriam Virginia; and Nancy's brother Benjamin all share the single tombstone shown in the photo. New

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-49394042176099207912010-10-02T11:53:00.000-07:002010-10-02T12:18:11.422-07:00

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Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-72539755585447995012010-09-06T12:03:00.000-07:002010-09-13T20:52:14.099-07:00

"No one will ever love your words as much as you do," said someone I've forgotten. The meaning, of course, is that a person other than the author will make the best critical evaluation of that author's writing. That evaluation is the job of an editor. Well, an excellent editor has made just such an evaluation of my well loved writing. Her eleven page critique suggests substantial deletions in

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-8375508313850427252010-05-28T21:20:00.000-07:002010-05-28T21:31:01.248-07:00

"...to find a good schooner of light draught and about 150 tons burden and to charter the same" were David Kokernot's orders from the Revenue Cutter Service. So he "chartered the schooner Julius Caesar" and set out for pass Barataria, which was "alive with smugglers." Kokernot's tale that follows is an exciting one, with a hurricane, shipwreck on a deserted shore, death, rescue by children, and

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-75019438097683930242010-04-27T13:05:00.000-07:002010-04-27T13:11:21.245-07:00

It is a pleasure to see David Kokernot receive acknowledgement as the rogue he often was. Wanda Orton has a piece in the Baytown Sun describing the "tory chase" and likening Kokernot to "Dwight," of The Office. I don't know that show, but the comparison seems right on.A short piece must by necessity leave many details out. The livestock Kokernot seized from citizens during the revolution were

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-5201248946831269242010-03-21T08:58:00.001-07:002010-06-15T18:53:04.988-07:00

The return address caused a warm smile to cross my face: "Superior Crude Gathering." The smile broadened to a grin as I slipped the check from the envelope. Like many Texans, I look forward to this annual largess in the form a royalty payment for oil extracted from Barber lands. I hurriedly filled out a deposit slip to speed my share,$19.07, to my checking account.In my case, it's not the sum,

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-53750188004174816682010-02-08T12:38:00.000-08:002011-03-26T08:42:59.451-07:00

Count me among those who believe that many patents issued today are frivolous. They describe something that is either self-evident, impractical, or physics defying. I'll bet you've seen a cartoon showing hopeful men in the waiting room of the patent office, each with some contraption in his lap, one man making a rueful comment to another. It's not done that way. Never has been. All you need for a

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-52283723435623480902009-12-20T20:09:00.000-08:002009-12-21T18:32:39.827-08:00

When David Kokernot's ancestors on his mother's side arrived in Amsterdam from Hamburg in 1710 they probably entered the city through this lock. Passage from Hamburg via the North Sea could be accomplished in a small vessel because the route was protected by barrier islands. From the North Sea they entered and crossed the Zuiderzee, then the Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal by way of this lock. The

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-77679449737194080142009-11-09T17:28:00.000-08:002009-11-09T19:32:45.786-08:00

Amsterdam Jews in the eighteenth century celebrated their marriages at their synagogue, rarely bothering to register them with the civil authorities. After the turn of the nineteenth century, however, the authorities insisted that all marriages be registered in the same manner as those in the Dutch Reformed Church. On January 29, 1808, David Kokernot's parents complied, even though they had

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-84659899059740319082009-09-01T16:57:00.000-07:002009-09-02T14:22:39.090-07:00

As I started some heavy editing to chapter three of my biography of David Kokernot--a chapter I wrote almost four years ago--I grew wistful remembering the three months I spent researching in New Orleans. Chapter three (further described here) relates the happy years the Kokernot family spent in that city in the 1820s. I added these introductory paragraphs to the chapter:When I arrived in New

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-25968696183859904412009-06-13T21:50:00.000-07:002009-09-08T10:26:19.607-07:00

Both boys instinctively covered their eyes at the sudden burst of Arizona sun as their jailer led them out to the scaffold, according to the Tucson newspaperman who accompanied them. Stiffened by a shot of whiskey from Sheriff White, they climbed the steps with the coolness and nerve that twenty year old Texans are capable of. Hangings were public in 1900 Tombstone, so a large crowd heard their

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-32990127246856326712009-05-08T18:42:00.000-07:002009-05-08T19:29:00.898-07:00

I had another of those creepy moments a couple days ago--the one where I come across a nugget of information that I know no one else knows. I'm sure Einstein felt the same way when he learned that E equals mc squared. The only difference is that in my case no one cares. But that doesn't change the feeling. Anyway, I learned when, where, and how David Kokernot's father died.Before now, all we knew

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-77145307843555074192009-04-22T16:49:00.000-07:002009-04-22T17:03:28.635-07:00

It's the same every spring--ski season ends, allergy season begins, and the ospreys show up along with our human snowbirds from wherever they spend their winters. Laika the space dog, my woo, and I spotted our first ones yesterday and again today. They were working the orographic lift created by the wind against the highway embankment along the Lake Pend Oreille shore at the north end of the Long

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-43344118007272890462009-04-04T13:40:00.000-07:002009-04-04T14:43:27.826-07:00

When David Kokernot first moved his family to Texas from New Orleans in 1831 it was "a very pleasant trip" aboard the "Schooner Flash, Captain Falwell," he later wrote. That fact has been repeated so often that I was a little surprised to find that the Flash was not built until four years later. I wrote this off as simply another of Kokernot's many errors of fact. This one was clearly an honest

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-31767084209516692762009-03-11T16:26:00.000-07:002009-03-11T19:16:35.504-07:00

Harry Daves was a Texan of the old school. He was cranky and persistent, but modest and respectful. Nevertheless, the language heard in his living room could drop a Yankee's jaw. It did mine. He loved history, but his modest education, or maybe it was the cranky persistence, kept him at odds with the more formal historians of his section of Texas. So it seemed to this visitor from the north.Harry

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-25721549731133218682009-02-24T16:40:00.000-08:002009-02-24T20:50:27.972-08:00

I was born in Chicago and was raised in Alaska and Idaho. I'm a thorough Yankee. Not so my ancestors. Six generations of them lived in Texas, but I never set foot in the state until I was an adult. Since I became interested in family history I have visited often--twice a year, even. When I do, I exclaim "Thank you, Pappy!"It was Pappy, my grandfather, who moved the family from the dustbowl of

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-61719851822894448922009-02-04T12:29:00.000-08:002009-02-24T15:31:06.725-08:00

I wrote this short essay in December 2005. Kent Gardien, the "Old Man," died June 26, 2006. Progress on the book mentioned is at Kokernot book.In November I visited an old man in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Cousin Barbara Jo Brothers and I went with the sole purpose of meeting him, yet I had the feeling that I already knew him, and even that I was seeing myself twenty or thirty years hence. He was

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-4309696500221226282009-01-31T20:28:00.000-08:002009-01-31T22:43:35.151-08:00

Yes, online research is convenient and it gets better as more original source documents become available online every year--see my previous post for an example. But research conducted only with online resources or secondary documents is incomplete. Besides, researching original documents is just more fun and satisfying. First, there's the chase. You cannot flit around the world at the speed of

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-64508160200327057292009-01-26T20:27:00.000-08:002009-01-29T20:20:19.510-08:00

Here is an example of research, not frivolous, that can be done entirely online. It yields information, including photographs, providing color and context to light up descriptions of the Kokernot's family life in Amsterdam. It requires finding an address (in this case, of David Kokernot's mother's family), or at least a street; finding that location on an old map; and finding actual drawings from

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7567682267172032531.post-28671882203223002009-01-25T17:00:00.000-08:002009-01-25T18:43:19.217-08:00

Technorati reported last summer that there were then 112 million blogs on the web. Surely we need one more, huh? Enough friends and strangers have asked when my biography of David Levi Kokernot will be available (bless 'em) that I hope this blog will help maintain their interest long enough to buy one when it's available. I'm also counting on my public exposure of my progress to temper my

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04566980144691746351noreply@blogger.com0