You have this additional interesting peculiarity, character objects. Remember we saw ASCII symbols? Character objects are defined to hold such symbols. One byte storage is allocated to every care type. The declaration is you say care, sim, care, first underscore, later underscore, off underscore, name. Basically, all these variables independent of the name are capable of storing one value between 0 to 255, which is interpreted to be an ASCII code of that term. The character values, constant values, just as we write decimal values, fractional values, character values are written enclosed in single quotation mark. So, single code P, single code, single code star, single code. What is the third one? Single code, blank space, single code. There are many symbols which are not visible to us. After all, there are 256 ASCII values. Some symbols are visible to us, A to Z, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, plus, minus. Some symbols like space is not visible, tab is not visible, new line character is not visible. For them, C++ provides a notation. If we want to specify any one of these characters as a value, we can put a escape character backslash. So, apostrophe backslash t, apostrophe close, means it is a tab character. Apostrophe backslash n, apostrophe will mean a new line character. Remember, you saw that on the screen, when you edit a program, there are lines. So, first line, many times, the next statement does not continue. There it comes on the next line. You typically press enter button to go to the next line. What is inserted internally is a new line character, and that is shown by this. Suppose I want to put a single code itself as a character. How can I do that? If I wrote code, this is my code, and this is my closing code. They all have the same symbol basically. Now, inside if I write a code, is that adequate? No, because the first code followed by the second code, C++ will say your character is ended. Although there is nothing inside, it will assume that you are specifying what is known as a null character. There is actually a null character which actually has a value 0. It will represent that by value, and then it will come to this third apostrophe. It will say, who is this? Error, error, error. So, if I want to prescribe an apostrophe, then I will have to use a backslash apostrophe. Backslash merely means, interpret the next character that I type as a special character. How do I include a backslash itself? Backslash followed by backslash. Because backslash means something special. The next backslash is actually a special character. That is how you can reply. I can have care objects. So, I can declare care sim. And in my program I can say, sim is equal to P in single apostrophe. This is perfectly valid. What will be stored inside the location for sim will be the ASCII value of P. Do you remember the ASCII value of P? Nobody remembers. We last time we saw M and OP, whatever, whatever. Sorry? 112. 112. Sure? Okay. Let's write 112. Whatever. We don't know. But 112 will take it. Now, here is the beauty. C++ treats every character object as if it's a numerical integer value. Because it is actually. What is being stored in that one byte is an unsigned integer, 0 to 255. Consequently, C++ permits care objects to participate in numerical computations. You can add something to it, multiply it by somebody, whatever. Of course, multiplying the value of P by 27 will yield meaningless results. But something meaningful can be done. So, look at this. Care sim1, sim2. Sim1 is equal to M. Sorry, there is a mistake here. I have to say this, right? So, the symbol value for M has gone into symbol. What will be the value of sim2? He says R. Can you figure out why? We don't know what is the symbolic value of M. Assume some number. We know that symbolic values for all the valid symbols are given in increasing order. So, if M has some value, next value will be N, next value will be O, next value will be P, next value will be Q, next value will be M, N, O, P, Q, R. M plus 1, N, M plus 2, O, M plus 3, P, M plus 4, Q. So, somebody was calculating it so fast that he skipped one later. So, what should be the value here? We will actually use this feature later when we learn to handle character value for the time being. Just treat it as a different data type where this is permanent. We will just ignore this slide. It's a busy slide. It's not much time. I still want to come to the expression evaluation quickly. This is a slightly longer lecture. So, we ignore this slide. You can read it later. All of these will be put up on the model. The assignment operation. This is the most important computational operation and it is necessary that we understand it. Whenever we write M equal to something, that statement is said to be an assignment statement. The assignment statement has two sides across the equal to symbol. The equal to symbol is not the representative of equality. Equal to symbol is called assignment operator. It has a left-hand side and a right-hand side. The left-hand side must be a single name representing an object which will receive the assigned value. The right-hand side is usually any expression which is calculated and that results in a single value. So, the way the assignment operation works is the value on the right-hand side is evaluated. In the sample case, the value is minus 35, so that itself becomes the value. Now, this value is taken and is assigned to the location designated on the left-hand side. Since LHS says M, value of M now becomes minus 35. If M was earlier 28, 35, whatever, that value will be lost. This new value will come into being. The expression can contain multiple arithmetic operators. What are the arithmetic operators? You are familiar with minus plus star slash percent is a modulo operator. It gives remainder. So, for example, if I have something like 10 modulo 4, what will be the value? 2. Because 4, 2 is 8, 10 minus 8 is 2, the remainder is 2. There is a precedence rule, common sense. All of your familiar division multiplication happens before addition and subtraction. The modulo is at the same level. If in an expression there are operators, one after another, which are at the same precedence level, then they are executed left to right. Again, common sense evaluation, all the algebraic evaluation rules that you follow. If you don't like that precedence, if you want something else to be done first, then you include those operations in parenthesis. So, you can supersede the natural law of associativity and precedence. The general form of expression is this. Name is equal to expression. You understood? RHS is evaluated. Here is a sample example given. How will this expression be evaluated? What is the precedence? First do multiplication. So, first this will be evaluated. You will get a value what? 20. Then you say plus 3. This will be evaluated. What is the value? 23. Now this, once you have received this value, you will assign it to the left hand side. Simple rules, no confusion here. Suppose I write this statement. a star a equal to 16. There is a question asked yesterday. He says I want to actually put value 4 in a, but I want to tell c++ compiler the same thing in a different way. I want to say a star a is equal to 16. Naturally a is equal to 4. See all of you have gone into a mode of treating this as an equation. a square equal to 16. Therefore a can be either plus 4 or minus 4. All that is silly. No, the first thing that you must observe is that it is a completely meaningless invalid statement for c++. Because LHS, the left hand side has to be a single name. Single name because that designates the receiver of a final value. There has to be a single name. This entire statement is wrong. It is rubbish. c++ will throw this out. This is what I want you to understand. If you want to say assign value 4 to a, you have to say a equal to 4. You cannot assign a value to an expression. That is why I said you have to remember this equal to is not an equality symbol. Equal to is an assignment operation and the form of that operation is LHS is to be assigned the value of RHS. RHS can be an expression, but LHS has to be a single object location. It cannot be a constant value also. You cannot say 5 is equal to a. That is invalid. Left hand side is cannot be 5. It has to be a location which can receive a value. So LHS of an assignment statement is a receiver, single receiver. Get this? No confusion. Here is another example of assignment operation. How will this be evaluated? First the right hand side will be evaluated. So what will be done first? It will of course first take all the values which are available. 5 plus m is 5 multiplied by n is 4 divided by 2 minus 3. This is the expression now. Now it will calculate it as star and slash. Both at same priority. What is the first one? Left to right. First it will do this. You calculate this as 20. Next it will do 20 by 2. Calculate this as 10. Now it reduces to 5 plus 10 minus 3. Next it will do this. Calculate it as 15. And next it will do this. Calculate it as 12. 12 is the value of RHS. Now this value will go and sit inside the location for R. Is this clear? That is how expression sorry value. Another expression. We will not go through the values but I would like you to ponder over what will be done first. What are the high priority operators? Multiplication. How many multiplications are there? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We have said that if there are multiple operators at the same precedence the operation will be from left to right. So as far as this is concerned this will be done first. This will be followed by this. What about this operation? What about this operation? Here this will be done first and this will be done next. But please note that these components are separated by plus, minus, etc. Now here is a question. Whether 3.14159 multiplied by R will be calculated first or whether 2 multiplied by 3.14159 will be calculated first. You must understand the rule of C++ does not specify that among two distinct groups of operations which are separated by lower level precedence operators what should be the precedence of doing things here or there? Actually it depends on the C++ compiler. By and large the compiler will carry out even these things first, this and this but that is not necessary. Later on we shall see when we consider particularly operators such as plus, plus, j they get evaluated whenever they occur. It does not matter where they occur at the right hand side. This is not very meaningful. As far as we are concerned we will still apply left to right rule which is open. R-D-A-S-H is a name which represents some other memory location. That's all. Finally this is what you must remember. LHS must be an object to which a value can be assigned. Must underscore must. No choice. Operand types. This is the one possible confusion. If both operands of the same type result value is of the same type. Very fundamental rule quite confusing sometimes. If in my program I write 9.0 divided by 2.0, the result will be 4.5. If I write in my program 9 divided by 2, the result will not be 4.5 because 9 is an integer value, 2 is an integer value, the division that is carried out is an integer division, fraction is lost. Of course if the operands are of a different type, then what is done is before computation the lower operand is converted to higher level. Integer is converted to flow. So consequently if I wrote 9 divided by 2.0. Now one is floating point, one is integer. So it will convert 9 to floating point. Treat this as a floating point operation and calculate the correct value 4.0. I could also write this as 9.0 divided by 2 or I could also write this as 9.0 divided by 2.0. If I have in my program float x in N and somewhere in my program I said x divided by N is perfectly valid. X is float, N is in but because the mismatch is there N will be converted to floating point and the result will be a proper floating point. You have to remember this because sometimes there will be a gacha. Sir, what is the approximation? Meaning? Let us say if I have integer, I have a thread in the integer. So result in the integer but my division accurate is 4.9. So will it show me 5 or 4? 4.4. Next slide does that. There are the possible problems in the expression evaluation. While two values participating in an operation can individually be within stipulated range the result may not be in that range. In such a case an erroneous value will be reserved. Actually the word erroneous is not correct. An approximate value will be reserved which itself could be erroneous. Here are some quick examples. i is equal to minus 25, x is equal to 2.147. j is equal to 3.2. j is integer. What will happen? j will be 3. What if I said j is equal to 3.9. It will still be 3. So when a floating point value is converted to integer the fractional part is mercilessly chopped off. j is equal to 1.24 e30. What will come into j? Remember 1.24 e30 is actually an integer number. But that number is 12400000 till eternity. And poor fellow j is a 4 byte number. It can at most store a few of the zeros. Complete loss of processing. This should never be done. It's our problem. y is equal to 29. 29 is integer. y is float. It's converted to 0.29. y is equal to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Now integer is being converted to floating point. The floating point representation actually is 0.123456789 multiplied by e1. If I treat this as a floating point in my representation it will be 0.123456789 e9. However, the mantissa has more digits than what can be accommodated in a 32 bit number. Since we said 6, 7 digits are excluded. What the C++ compiler actually does is this type it is more generous. It will round off the last digit. So if it can store, for example, 6 digits of mantissa precision the actual number will be 0.1234567. It has 6, 7 rounds up to 7. So here is an expression. How do I write an expression? Yes, can you help me? Multiplied by there is nothing like x cube, x square, etc. available as an operator. So I have to multiply this expression. This is okay.  It is possible that you start writing expression which will have bracket here and bracket here and bracket here. Many times in algebraic expressions you do that, right? Larger bracket means towards the end. Unfortunately, the machine does not have these larger and smaller brackets. So they have to be all written like this The entire assignment operation itself is treated as an expression. This is another googly of C plus plus. So when I say m is equal to n is equal to 25 is a valid statement in C plus plus. What it means is m is equal to in bracket n is equal to 25. Now this is a valid assignment statement. When it is executed 25 value is assigned to n. Apart from assigning the value 25 to n C plus plus treats that this entire expression also has a value 25. So the same 25 value can go into n. Consequently, if I have declared int m and p and if I want to initialize all of them to a value 10 then I cannot do that in the declaration easily. I will have to say int m equal to 10 int n equal to 10, etc. I can accomplish that more easily. This is just a squiggle and an aberration. Not a very important point. I don't encourage you to use such fancy stuff. Object on LHS may appear in an expression on RHS. This is perhaps the most important point. When I say n is equal to 3 star m plus 2 star n it is a valid statement. Assume that n has some value. Let us say n currently has a value 5 before I come to this expression at all. Now imagine what will happen? Let us say m has a value 3. So what will C plus plus 2? It will replace the values here. It will say I have to calculate 3 multiplied by 3 plus 2 multiplied by 5. In this I have this to be done first 9 plus 2 multiplied by 5. Then I have to do this next which means 9 plus 10. Then I have to do this and I will get 9. This is the value of the expression. Now it will look at the left hand side. So please understand if the variable object appearing on the left hand side also appears on the right hand side there is no dilemma. Because C plus plus compiler to begin with does not look at all at the left hand side. It doesn't care what location is specified. Looks at the right hand side, substitutes values calculate the final value. Now it looks at the left hand side. Left hand side happens to be n. So it will take the value 19 move this value 5 and put 19. This is often used as an increment operator. For example I can say m is equal to m plus 1. So it means before the execution of this statement suppose m was 25 after this it will become 26. This is used in many kind of counting algorithms which we will use later. So there should be no confusion. Always remember we are not talking about a equation. There is a right hand side which says m plus 1. It is calculated some value comes that becomes the new value of it. Is it okay? Fine. We will stop here. I have several other slides. I will just take this slide. Float x, y, avogadro. You all know avogadro number at least? You agree that it is 6.023e23? No. Yes? Fine. So now x is equal to y minus 8.6597 plus avogadro. How will it calculate? It will calculate y minus 8.657. What value you will get? Complicated. Some value. Yes? No one knows. Minus? Any one person please? If you are doing it mentally it is not a good idea. Minus 1.31. So I have got minus 1.3134. To this I want to add a value which is 6.023000. Till I get bored I keep counting 0 something like that. What will be the final value now? If I strictly do this subtraction the value should be 6.022999 again till I get bored and some values at the end which will be 6.6868. This is the correct value. I call this an accountant's value. But an engineer and scientist value is not this. What will happen in C++? It will say you have so many so much of precision I can't store all of this. I will store it in my 6 or 7 digits of precision. And since it's a fractional number I mean floating point number I will convert it appropriately. So I will represent 6.023E20. So Avogadro plus something Avogadro minus something is equal to Avogadro or E20. Well this is easier. Follow this? Okay we will stop here now. Thank you.


So you don't wanna waste your time working with hotkeys. You wanna own them, not a problem. All right, the most important hotkey is the hotkey that creates more hotkeys, right click. Let's say that you find yourself using the join command a lot. You just love bringing things together. You can't help yourself, you just love doing it. So normally you would perform that by right clicking and selecting join. But if you right click again, it'll give you the option to assign a new key. So if I wanted to activate it with let's say the E key instead, just type E here, and from now on, every time you press E, it will override and activate the join command. And you can really do this for just about everything you can see. Even things that don't normally have hotkeys. For example, if you're coming from 3D Max, Houdini, Cinema 4D, or Maya like I did, you probably had one hotkey to control each of the three gimbals for move in rotation and scale. And when you moved to Blender, you were probably super pissed that instead of one hotkey, they forced you to press three separate keys instead. Shift, space bar, then you had to waste time looking through a menu. Literally three times the work. Well, I figured out, if you just go to a gimbal and right click it, you can assign your own override hotkey to them. So I can go over here to move, rotate, and scale, and set them to W, E, and R, just like the way it was in Maya. The last trick that you need to know about is how to create a quick menu. Let's say that there are things that you do quite often, but not so often you feel you need a dedicated hotkey. Well, in that case, I would dump that action into a quick menu. If you see an action in a menu, right click and add the favorites, and you will store it in a special quick menu. Then at any time, you can access things in that menu by pressing Q. I usually do this for less common, but still really important things, like adjusting normals or controlling the lights. And that should be everything you need to know to set up your workflow just the way you like it. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to ring that bell. It's the only way you will know when I upload new stuff. And as always, I hope you have a fantastic day, and I'll see you around.


It's very successful, one handed. Another vlog, today we are headed off to Disneyland. It's about 205 on a Friday. So hopefully the traffic won't be too bad, but we are meeting up with Drew's family. They come to visit a lot. It's like his cousins and aunts and uncles and stuff. I am looking for my bag, sorry. And we're gonna head over there and have a little Disney evening. So that'll be really fun, have some family time. I was supposed to be doing jury duty this week, but I actually ended up getting dismissed, so didn't have to do that. So I've just been trying to catch up on some work and stuff and oh, there's the way it was. Laila just went outside, she's good to go.   We're only going for the evening, so we won't be going for that long.  Got a sweatshirt for later. I'm gonna wear my Disneyland sweatshirt or my Mickey sweatshirt that I thrifted in Japan. So that'll be really fun, cause it's gonna be chilly later. It was supposed to be like really cloudy today and then the sun came out. So that was interesting. I'll drive us. Okay! Passengers princess. And you're my passenger princess, Sarah. You're gonna log in, you know. Wow, thank you. Yeah, I know, my stomach hurts a little bit. It's okay, it's just IBS things. Anyway, that's what we're doing, that's the plan, and we're headed off to Disneyland. I haven't been there since, I think the rainy day I had with Sarah, maybe? And Drew hasn't been there since like, I wanna say January when we met up with my friend Beth and her husband, Nick. So it's been a while, so let's do it. I'll do it if Gary does, why are we on it if not Gary? Morning besties, it's the next morning. This is what we're working with.   We had a great time. We are getting ready to do our typical Saturday morning routine, which is like go for a walk, get some coffee and I remembered that I ordered these underwear from Amazon. This is kind of random, but I wanted like to test it out and then maybe thought we could test it out together. So I love and I'm obsessed with Ashley Lopez or Super Ashley 127 on Instagram and she recommended this pair of underwear that is like a seamless underwear and she said that it doesn't show underneath her workout leggings. And I was like, I need to be the judge of that. So I was about to get dressed and I have this like, I think this is an old navy pair of bike shorts and I love it, but I do feel like it shows my underwear a lot. So let's see. Cause I like, as much as I wanna be like a G string thong girly all the time, I have like bits down there, you know? And sometimes I just want some coverage. So let's, let's test it out. I gotta bring Layla inside first though, hold on.  Also look, our little like bush thingy out here is blooming and it's so pretty. You ready to go back inside? Okay, let's go. All right, here is the underwear. It comes in a pack of like four, I think. And I took one out just to look at it and it's just like a nice seamless. It also does look like there's a good like fabric lining. So it's nice that there's like some fabric there. You know what I mean? So all right, we're gonna put these on and test them out. Okay, so you will have to let me know if you see anything, I can see like a tiny line, but it does actually seem pretty good coverage. I feel kind of weird about showing my butt this much, but like it seems like pretty good coverage and like not a lot of lines. My turn's like, I don't know if that helps at all. I think it's pretty good. I definitely do see a little bit of a line, but like I guess it's a lot better than if I were to wear regular underwear. So I'll leave a link to those down below in case you're interested. It's not like an affiliate link or anything, but yeah, not bad. All right, we are going to walk and get some coffee. I think we're gonna maybe do blue bottle this morning. We're like in our blue bottle era right now. We go through phases with coffee shops, but blue bottle sounds really good.  Such a lovely morning. It's such a great way to start the day. It's already 12 30 now, but we just like walked and got our coffee. We walked around the neighborhood for a little bit. We ended up sitting out on the patio. Drew was on the phone with his mom and I was playing my switch and like I got some sun. It was so relaxing. I just like threw on a different jacket and some different shoes. And we're actually gonna try. I need to put on my makeup. I'm gonna do like a quick three minute makeup routine in the car, but we're actually gonna try din tai fun, which is a restaurant that has like dim sum and stuff. And I've heard such good things on TikTok and there's always like a super long wait. So we thought that maybe if we tried to go for a lunch, it wouldn't be so bad. And so we called and they said it's only like 30, 45 minutes. So we can just like walk around and shop while we're waiting. And yeah, I'm really excited. So one thing about me is that if something is trending on TikTok, I will try it. I wanna try it. I wanna see what the hype is all about. I wanna try the recipe. I wanna try the product. I wanna try the pickle wrapped in cheese, whatever. It's just very fun for me. So I'm gonna test it out. How I did it. I did my makeup in the car. This is not like the most small appropriate outfit, but like it's fine, it'll do. We're in a line. I'm ready for some buns, some cucumber salad, all of it. You're ordering so much food. Like I think we just ordered eight things. So, we'll see how it goes. This is the moment I've been waiting for. Cucumber salad, let's try it. All right, cheers. Oh my goodness. This is chicken shalom bao. We were gonna get the pork one, but we got something else with pork. We also got a honey lemonade and a lychee black tea, and his black tea has a whole lychee in it. Yeah, so good. I'm supposed to take a bite out of it. Oh, it already is punctured. Hey, thank you so much. So good. Oh my God, there's more kimchi for resembling. This is gonna be so back to proud. We got some wontons. I think these are pork most of them. No, they're chicken. Oh, they're chicken. Yeah, these were pork. These are chicken. Oh my goodness. We're almost done, I swear. Only two more things after this. Now we got noodles and spicy sauce. This is the last one. This is the last one, yeah, promise. And then we got dessert. Now for the grand finale, chocolate and lychee shalom bao. I am so excited. Oh my God, look at that. I'm going to enjoy every moment of this. Got our leftovers. These are gonna be consumed for dinner or maybe lunch tomorrow. Oh my God, it was so good. I was getting in the car and wasn't filming, but Drew goes, it was tasty. It literally was so good. I'm gonna give it like nine out of 10. Like, it was really, really good. Definitely worth the hype, because you know some of those places, you're like, wait a minute. Yeah, there were a couple of things that we were just like, it's okay. It's not like the buns that we got, the vegetable pork buns, I think they were, or vegetable chicken, something like that. That was just okay. Not my favorite, but the fricking spicy wontons, the noodles and spicy sauce, the chicken shalom bao. I'm sure the pork one's really good to the fricking chocolate shalom bao at the end. That was both Drew's and my favorite thing. Chocolate boom boom. That's a love on the spectrum reference. There's one episode where someone's friend was drinking a smoothie and I think it was called strawberry boom boom and he goes, mm, strawberry boom boom in my mouth. I love that guy. Yeah, we are obsessed with him and Drew and I say that regularly. Anyway, yeah, it was so, so good. So if you're near a din tai feng, it was amazing. The service was really good. Like everyone was so nice. I think. Like the friendliest. Yeah, the friendliest restaurant. We went to the Sentry City location. Yeah, this was great for like a lunch date and now we're gonna go home and nap because we are still recovering from last night.  Like suddenly you're hungover from that. It's wild. Right, we're home from lunch and I actually got a couple things delivered from Amazon that I ordered yesterday because I just wanna like finish up some things around the house that we never did. Like we've lived here for God 10 months now, I think. And there's just still some things that like I've been meaning to do. So the first being we have this freaking weird outlet in our kitchen that's above the kitchen sink, like above the window. I don't know what it would have been for back in the day, maybe a clock or something like that, like an electric. I have no idea. But it's very bizarre and we wanna cover it up.  So we thought maybe a clock.  But this one is really cute and it looks kind of like retro. Like I love the, I don't know whatever this is, aluminum or something. But like I think it's adorable. So I don't know, I don't think it's big enough to cover the area. I tried measuring it, but we'll see. So that's a maybe that might end up going back. I also got some flameless LED candles that are like different from the sort of Harry Potter-esque ones that we use during Halloween and Christmas. And these are gonna go inside of these sconces that we got. We got these sconces. No, I got them at the Long Beach flea market and haven't gotten to hang them up yet. So we're gonna do that today. And then also we bought this piece of art. I'll show it in a minute. When we went to the Melrose Trading Post like a few weeks ago, it was like $5, $10, something like that, the piece of art. But it's like a plastic frame and there's nothing to hang it with. Like there's no hooks on the back of it or anything. So I ordered this picture hanging kit and it has like some wire. And so I think we're gonna like try to figure out how to attach some stuff on it. And then I also got, oh, in case of emergency, got some E6000. That's just good for like crafting and all that kind of stuff anyway.  These are like a kind of heavy duty wall hook that we've been using to hang every single thing in our apartment. Cause in case you didn't know, the walls are plaster. So we literally can't drill in them.  I thought it was a 60 pound limit. There's like a picture of a woman like hanging on it. I'm like, that's a lie. Anyway, all right. First things first, let's see if this clock works. Cause this is the bane of my existence. It drives me crazy. 12 seconds later. So yeah, that's not going to work. I don't think it's been two seconds. That's okay. We'll work on the other art and we'll just see where we can get with this. A little candles waiting on the batteries to come for those. They look so good. Finally, a solution for this wall. It looks so much better than it did. Wow, amazing. So this is what we've come up with for now because that doesn't cover the outlet. Ignore that, we need to just wash that off. But essentially that would ideally go in the middle right here, but it doesn't cover the whole area. So we hung these up for now. What we're gonna do is just the next time we're at the Miller's Trading Post get another one of these vertical ones and just put it there because that's just what we have. So anyway, it's not perfect at all but at least when I'm talking now you'll just see that instead of this like random hole and an outlet. Anyway, I'm tired. We stayed up super late last night watching. We binged the entire Boston Bomber Marathon like Netflix documentary series. It was really intense and really crazy that it's already been 10 years since that happened. So crazy and traumatic. And yeah, watching that was really intense but it was very good. So I recommend it. So anyways, I'm just like exhausted. So we're just gonna have a couch today. We're gonna relax. But we're just trying to get a couple things done around the house, clean a little bit. You know, typical Sunday things. But I'm so relieved to at least have this stuff like on the walls and then we'll just mess with it later.


We've seen so many players step up and play well with Jeffers Simmons or Kevin Byger here later When the Titans signed Jim Wyatt to become the senior writer editor for the Tennessee Titans in 2015 It might have been the first big move that Amy Adams-Strunk made as a controlling owner Jim had covered the team since almost the day that the team moved to Nashville So his credibility was unmatched with the Titans fan base Jim's presence makes Tennessee Titans calm the first stop for Titans fans every day of the year a lot of these fans that I've Known since I started covering the team, you know back in 1999 and a lot of times I'll tell people hey I remembered when you first started to Tennessee and that's been a big part of it. I appreciate people to read I appreciate people that are passionate about this team because they're what kind of makes us go So I'm trying to give people a look on what happens on the practice field Practice observations news of the day feature stories try to work ahead and you know a lot of days It ends up being three four things a day you try to crank out Jim Wyatt's work ethic on behalf of the fans is no joke He never stops ever He writes three or more stories a day He does interviews with radio shows Podcasts and TV shows Jim has a love for his job and a humility that makes him never forget who he works for I don't consider myself the best writer out there, but I've always been willing to work You know, there are a lot of other people that's marty who do a great job And now my job is to try to Outwork them as much as I can and to try to you know Tell stories about the team and try to pump out as much information About the team as possible and it all starts with a pencil Jim Wyatt is famous for the many pencils that he has on him at press conferences and interview sessions Every picture of Jim shows him with multiple pencils clinging to his ever-present visor for Jim It's like when he started school in the 1970s Pencils are practical when you're making a mistake. You can erase it easy a lot of times I keep a file on my notebook or what's going on day to day instead of having to start on a whole new page every day I can use the eraser to update it. I keep it on the visor because you always know where it is You know, you don't have an ink blemish on your pants I used to get from time to time and I usually have a couple of them because you never know when you're going to run out of Run out of lead when we're out in public with Jim Wyatt titans fans treat him like a rock star They love his stories. They love his twice weekly mail bags They love him on twitter and they like the special touches that he gives them each week Kind of like the now famous britches report in seven seasons with the titans Jim's britches report has become an instant classic When I started working with the team I'd get a heads up on what the uniform combinations were going to be It was it was uniform and I think the first couple of times I said tights are wearing, you know, blue jersey white pants And I think I said blue jersey white trousers, you know, blue jersey white britches I went through a long list of different descriptions for for pants and the britches took off It's funny how people look forward to that, you know, some new fans or fans that are following the team Elsewhere they see britches sometimes and they still man who uses the word britches Jim Wyatt uses the word britches along with thousands of other words that he provides for the titans fans every single week He works for the titans fans Jim's connection to the titans fan base comes naturally because Jim Wyatt embodies local boy makes good It means a lot. I grew up in Nashville went to fatherline high school went to grade school here I'm one of five all my brothers and sisters No grew up here in Nashville and you know, I never dreamed we'd have an NFL team I covered high school sports when I first started working for the tennessee and when I got out of college I loved that when the news came that the team was coming I continued to work high school then got an opportunity to cover, you know, the NFL And it's been a dream, you know career for me, you know being a national billion You know my dad 83 years old season tickets He goes all the games got so many friends that are passionate titans fans I just have such great pride in this city and such great pride in being able to work for the For the NFL team in this city the tennessee titans been a dream for me


Well, I would like to welcome you all and I particularly you can tell I'm very excited that we have Girl Scouts here This is an inauguration for the Center to have our first troop of Girl Scouts and they're from St. Paul's Girl Scout troop number 2158 and 2081 So that's a very great thing and I welcome each of you Particularly and I welcome all of you to the continuing Programming that we're having in place that I've put in place Recognizing the first anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center from the start I am Elizabeth Sackler and it is my pleasure to be here with you today Beverly Lowry Wrote this wonderful book Harriet Tubman Imagining a life a biography of Harriet Tubman Let me tell you first a little bit and it's only a little bit because Beverly's list of Accomplishments and achievements really are very long But I'd like to tell you that first and then tell you how it is that we are here Together today and then all of us are here also Beverly is professor of creative writing At the MFA program at George Mason University She started there in 1999 I understand and for the last three decades. She has maybe more She's been writing books nonfiction essays and articles and short fiction. She has won in 2007 the Richard Wright Award for literary excellence and she was a Rockefeller fellow and She holds numerous distinguished visiting writer Programs that she's been involved with over the years most recently at the University of Montana, which is 2008 She has been reviewed regularly in the New York Times book review section and That's where I segue and that's where we start to come together I love reading the New York Times book review section actually is Possibly one of the favorite things that I like about the New York Times and When I get it on Saturday mornings So I was going through and reading and there's this review and it's a review of Harriet Tubman imagining a life I thought my god This sounds really Fascinating one of the things that was written very early on in it. It says That this is a quote from that review Harriet Tubman the novelist Beverly Lowry's Contribution is labeled a biography, but subtitled imagining a life and This explains Her decision to emphasize the visual elements of Harriet's story What things look like Places and clothes Faces and plants the skies and to thread the information from all its sources and This really sounds fascinating. I immediately got the book and immediately read the book and part of what I loved so much about it and I hope that you will have an opportunity. They're on sale and they're signed by Beverly down at the bookstore at the gift shop is that that Beverly Imagined possibilities When there was no Factual information about Harriet Tubman She imagined. Well, she might have done this because of this or possibly Because of that or she might have felt a certain way, but then again, she might have felt another way So it takes you and your mind into that time of Harriet Tubman's work her life her struggles and It gives you an opportunity To begin to imagine What it all must have been like and it was really really exciting So I went into the office as soon as I finished it and put in a call to Beverly Lowry I figured out how to find her somehow and called her or emailed her. I don't remember how it all began and Two days later. I received an email from a friend of mine who lives out in New Mexico Who said to me? I have a friend by the name of Beverly Lowry Who has just written a book and she's going to be here when you are out here in New Mexico? And I thought maybe you would like to meet her and I said well funny thing I've already been in touch with her and I would love for her to come and speak at the forum and that was last summer and we were both of us Beverly and I out in Santa Fe together and At the same time and had lunch and it was wonderful and it was from that auspicious Moment, I think that I said well, let's let's have you come here Please and speak at the center and I just want to show you what my book looked like by the time I was finished reading it That's how much there is in here That for me has informed some of my thinking some writing actually that I've done and The way in which I've used it sort of as an ongoing reference And I think no matter what age you are and of course I was saying that because we have now our wonderful Girl Scouts here That I think there's something in this book for everybody And so please help me and join me in giving a warm welcome to wonderful Beverly Larry, thank you so much Elizabeth. We did have a wonderful lunch But Elizabeth went through the book with all those post-its asking me about different things now on page something that on page Some so I had to interrupt my eating the whole time to Answer her questions. I'm thrilled to have what is your troop member? All right, I'm thrilled to have you here I don't believe I've ever spoken to Girl Scouts before and I'm going to Change what I'm going how I'm going to speak today because of you because I don't want you to get uninterested I Wanted to address two questions one was who was Harriet Tubman and Who people think she is and and what she did that maybe people don't have as much knowledge of and the other was the question? I'm always asked which is why Harriet Tubman. Why did I write about her? I was going to talk about that first, but I'm not I'm going to talk about I want to read a little bit from the book that Maybe you all will be interested in and everybody will be interested in but And talk about who she was When I address young people I always ask that question. Do you know who Harriet Tubman was? anybody any of Can you tell me okay the underground railroad all right. Thank you. You're exactly right I've asked that question many many times of many groups of young people up Into college and the answer is always the same as the underground railroad often. It's just that underground railroad It's sort of like George Washington Founding father Ben Frank Benjamin Franklin the kite. It's how she's known I wanted to talk a little bit about that part of her life and Then talk about the the part of her life that's less well known is her participation in the Civil War as the first woman to go into a an armed campaign as a Leader of that campaign and up until not many years ago. She was the only one in a declared war She was the only woman to have done that. I don't know if that's still true or not since we've had a few other Wars and battles to think about but So I'll but in honor of my Audience here. I want to read a little bit from the part of her life that we know More about it's before the underground railroad there though She was enslaved in Maryland, which means she was property of some people and She determined that she was going to get away Before she was sold the way her sisters had been and when the person was sold They were never seen again for the most part. They just were they vanished and She did not want that to happen to her She felt like it would and she was probably right her brothers were afraid her whole family was afraid she took care of her whole family and She decided that if the brothers wouldn't go they would stay but she was going and so she went in The late afternoon as the Sun was setting and I'm going to read a little bit of what it was like when she went She could not read or write and There were no signs. There were no there was no roads. There were paths when there was a creek and a river and She had no other information to go on She had a letter that somebody had given her which she couldn't read But she could give it to somebody in a safe house where people would help her and they would Lead her to the next place. That's all she had. So I'm going to read a little bit of that night The moon tube nights pass full alone Harriet walks into the unknowable dark Barefoot and her slave dress heading perhaps along Marsh Creek The Quakers have given black people land for their own church and cemetery up by Preston the marshy Creek Methodist She may head there or pass on by not wanting to lose time so early in the journey Keeping to the wetlands allowing the streams and creeks that run beside the chop tank river to guide her She may well have her sights set on a spot near Greensboro where the river narrows enough that it can be crossed on foot at the red bridge Harriet keeps her mind on her business leaving fantasy and fear to others She has memorized Hannah Leviton Hannah Leviton was a Quaker woman who gave her the piece of paper She has to take her on She's memorized the instructions and may repeat them with every step to make sure she stays on the right path She checks the chop tank keeping it on her left to the west And she has her piece of paper with the names on it to give to other people who can read She knows the importance of a walking stick to poke along the ground in front of her helping her to feel out what she can't see Rabbit holes sinkholes logs tree roads roots animal traps set by farmers Nobody walks into alien territory without the stick The first night she makes as many miles as she can so that by the time she's discovered missing She'll be far from poplar neck where she lives and even farther from Bucktown by midnight. She's still making her way September 17th the night she left becomes the 18th exactly one year prior to the passage of the fugitive slave act Next year when other members of her family make their own flight to freedom Everything will be different everything Harriet may fall asleep in the woods in the early morning hours of the first night waiting until late afternoon to approach the first safe house When a woman comes to the door she displays the paper given to her by Hannah Leverton The woman responds by telling Harriet to get a broom and sweep the yard People in the south often sweep their yards when there isn't much grass and they want the dirt neatly packed and smooth But Harriet doesn't care for the idea of stopping Nonetheless, she does she's as she is asked Figuring that the request is probably for the purpose of camouflage So that a passer-by will assume the woman has hired her out and will not suspect her as a runaway That evening the woman's husband comes in from farming. He loads up his wagon and after nightfall Helps Harriet in and then thoroughly covers her up. She crouches down remains quiet They bump along Watching out for patrollers and slave catchers the farmer drives her to the outskirts of the next town where she gets out Keeping to the shadows speaking and whispers. He advises her where to go and how to find the next station in This manner she makes her way through Maryland She follows the waterways in place of roads through thickets and snake country Sleeping within the cradle of tree roots and in homemade caves hiding in dense clinging foliage Marking the navigable creeks in her memory as she goes In Maryland, she will say turning to matter for the Brooks run north Steadily she follows their lead. There is no organized system of assistance for runaway slaves at this time Beyond the loosely established web of abolitionists Quakers some Methodists who will pass people from one meeting house or home to the next Careful to avoid the areas where slave catchers and vigilantes hide out toward Delaware Camden Dover Wilmington she repeats the names to herself in the sequence. She's been given They are not states or towns to her only places to get through and go from In his autobiography my bondage and my freedom Frederick Douglass wrote of his own dream of escape And this is a quote. We had heard of Canada the real Canaan of the American bondsman Simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter But not as the home of man. I knew something of theology, but nothing of geography I really did not know at that time that there was a state of New York or a state of Massachusetts There's several routes through Maryland that Harriet might have taken perhaps moving quickly into Delaware following the river to its Headwaters near Camden where there were active African American abolitionists or she may have traveled on farther north in Maryland closer to Wilmington Either way this last leg was perhaps the most dangerous and her friends must have taken special care to get her through it There were bands of slave catchers who roamed the countryside there and with fewer areas of wetlands The bounty hunters had a better chance of spying a runaway slave making her way through the territory Although what would later be called the Underground Railroad had not yet been organized the people willing to assist runaways Were it dedicated and knowledgeable With their help Harriet made her way through Delaware Pennsylvania is the goal Whatever Pennsylvania may be Philadelphia When she arrives at the state line someone is with her who points it out to her and says look you've made it Walk over that line and you're free. She steps across Everything becomes new Even the light seems to change she looks down at her hands to make sure she's the same person When she looks up she sees the sun coming over the fields and through the trees and imagines the light as a glory over everything as if her farewell songs have come true And she's arrived at the promised land. I felt like she will tell Sarah Bradford in 1868 I was in heaven But her feelings of euphoria quickly dissipate I'd crossed the line she'll tell Bradford I was free, but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom I was a stranger in a strange land There's no one to talk to no one to tell no one knows where she is or what she's feeling or how far she's come All the way from the frolic in the poplar neck chicken with Mary through the swamps and woodlands to hear No one here knows what life was like in Bucktown She compares the situation to that of a man who was sent to prison for 25 years who long for home the whole time He was there only to return to find that his house has been pulled down and a new one put up in its place His family and friends having gone nobody knows where no one is there to take him by the hand No one to welcome him home as She heads toward Philadelphia. She settles her mind with a moral decision She has no right to individual freedom while others Those who are a part of her and whose presence her life belongs are bound Since she is free so should her family be she is the first daughter after all the one who has come out Successfully the one who hears the voices and has the insight Having been chosen. She believes she has no right to do anything but a bay no choice But to use her gifts to take on responsibility for others She makes a new resolve Once she's made a home in the north with God's help. She'll bring her family there Before crossing the bridge into Philadelphia. She prays. I said to the Lord I'm gonna hold steady on you and I know you'll see me through She's the same person but with a new resolve and a new name from now on. She's Harriet Tubman She crosses the Delaware Holding steady. We follow her I Want to say, you know, I think that the first question anybody might ask about this. How did I know that? I mean, I did try to I wanted to write a life of Harriet Tubman in scenes Without much analysis with as little analysis as I felt I could That the book would stand up without And but these everything in here, I mean, you'll notice I said it's possible. She did this this possible Nobody knows the thing about Harriet is and I've been living it with her for so long Forgive me if I call her by her first name. It's very hard to think of a heart is Ms. Tubman. I Think for practically anybody That whatever She did she did alone and So all the stories that people say about how she went what route she took are surmises or They come from her through somebody else. She did not read or write none of this is written down by her The person as I mentioned in here She told the story her first biographer was named Sarah Bradford. This was in 1868 when Harriet had a home with her family in Auburn, New York Which is in central New York on the Finger Lakes if any of you all are familiar with that part of the state and So the woman who took down everything that you read all the quotes that where she says I felt like I was in heaven She said that to Sarah Bradford or Sarah Bradford told us she said that the difficulty in writing the biography of someone who Could not read or write is that you were always dependent dependent upon somebody else's Version of what happened somebody else's language somebody else's interpretation and also on oral history, which does change throughout the Centuries the years the months and and so a biography of somebody who was enslaved who doesn't read or write of Necessity is based on some speculation and On the imagination I for one had no problem with that I think history is written from a point of view by a particular person in a particular time and To just pile up the facts is not to write a book. It's simply to pile up the facts But I was try I tried to be careful to back up anything I said that wasn't there I've made up no quotes and I made up nothing But I did not always know obviously what she did or what she was thinking and I tried always to Let the reader know that that's what I was doing and in the beginning I said that that's what I'll be doing so that you the reader would be prepared for that I think now I'll also just do another little reading and then I'll talk about the rest of what I wanted to talk about when the war came when in 1861 the Underground Railroad Disbanded the area in which it traveled it was not a real train I'm sure you all know that But it was a method of travel of transport from the south to Philadelphia across New York State This is Harriet's route. There were others coming up through Ohio and other parts of the country to Canada After the fugitive slave law was passed. They could not just go to New York. They went all the way to Canada But Harriet I mean the thing we have to remember about Harriet is she was just so dogged in her Determination to do what she could one person to help her people It is a great lesson for us all to sit around the thing. Oh, well, there's nothing to do. Nothing will help What can I do? She just this was gone. There's the Underground Railroad was disbanded She could not go down into Maryland because the war was there So what could she do? The Union troops went down to South Carolina to the Hilton head and the islands down there and Made their way and took over the forts there and she managed pretty Pretty soon after that to get down to South Carolina Where she this is where she led the armed campaign And but she said this is her quote as quoted in a book by an abolitionist The good Lord has come down to deliver my people and I must go to help them So she found her way down there. She thought she was going to teach at first she cooked and She did teach people down there how to Operate the freed slaves and and One of the interesting parts of her life down there is she had to have a Soldier she had to have a soldier who was open in his mind enough to know what she could offer Because the Union of Army was all together white at that point. They were Just getting into using African-American men as soldiers, but no women and She was not us in the army. She was not a real soldier She was a warrior. I think I was a warrior, but not a soldier and so while a lot of the Union Army officers admired her and acknowledged what she had done. They did not put her On a ship or make use of her as a spy or As a soldier until most of them were from the east from Harvard West Point a Soldier named James Montgomery came James Montgomery was from Kansas. He was from the West and this is a lot about Class and education as much as anything a disciple of John Brown and He did not believe in the etiquette of combat He believed man you burn them down if you find them you kill them all burn them down and Free the good people and The Harvard guys did not appreciate his method of warfare just like they did not appreciate John Brown's method of warfare but it took somebody like that to see Harriet Tubman know what she had done and she had a list of Of recommendations by people who knew what she had done bringing her people out of slavery and he Took her on and she and a friend of hers Walter Platton who knew the rivers were a part of this campaign They could tell him first of all how to get through the river to title rivers. So it's very difficult and And the people trusted her so that when they arrived there She could all these people who were my emancipation had already been declared But this is a very remote area of South Carolina and the people were still enslaved. So this is a little bit from That part of it The river is cause it's felt like come to heat but they in South Carolina. They call it this come be so I'm gonna call it the come be By the end of May plans are set for a raid up to come be the object of which is to destroy rebel lines of Communication and gather recruits from among the laborers and see they are laborers now. They aren't enslaved anymore But they have not received the word they have been Isolated and they're in a very remote part of the state and they are doing rice farming They have no idea that Lincoln has declared emancipation They've sent word to the bonded laborers to listen for a signal when they hear it there to drop everything in run Montgomery has raised five companies a portion of the third regiment Rhode Island heavy artillery will participate For Harriet the raid will offer her the first opportunity She has to go head-to-head with a lifelong enemy and using skill Deliberation and force to wait to take away from them. What never was theirs to begin with? The good Lord she believes has come to deliver her people and she is taking her place in the lead gunboat of the expedition to help out Navigating a river like the come be requires patience if not a tolerance for pure tedium and because smoke is visible for miles steam-driven Expedition expeditions begin undercover of darkness Usually at high tide and under a full moon and ended the enemy's doorstep at daybreak Before he is fully awakened Harriet's mission embarks on the night of a new moon the sky dark but for stars Clearly James Montgomery is depending on plowedness expertise to navigate the boat safely up river even in pure darkness The come be is narrow shallow winding and muddy with ridges of sand that shift with the tides Every nuance of its particular personality must be taken into account secretly Silently and with all confidence Under such circumstances the military commander waits and watches yielding the to the knowledge of his scouts on the night of June 1st 1863 a Monday Harriet and Walter step into the lead gunboat the John Adams a Converted old East Boston double-ender ferry boat the John Adams while unfit to foresee service is small dependable agile and strong Perfect for river work, especially on a river that twists and turns She's seen such duty before Okay, let's skip over James Montgomery joins Harriet and Walter on the lead ship Two other vessels follow the Harriet a weed and the Sentinel the troops load on 9 p.m. The boats carrying 300 soldiers soldiers slide into the river Under plowedness guidance they head north along the banks of ladies Island then angle West into St. Helena Sound where helped by the incoming tide they moved toward the mouth of the river Harriet was the only woman in the expedition and it is a tribute to the fierce independence of spirit exhibited by both David Hunter who is the general at the young in South Carolina and Montgomery that they have insisted not just on making use of her expertise But in having her board as well on board No other woman will plan and lead an armed expedition during the entire civil war Few women have done so in US military history a woman a black woman a former slave. She is in charge She is general Tubman On the morning of June 2nd at about 2 30 a.m. The boats reached the mouth of the Cumbie and there Successfully crossed the bar and move into the river in the south June brings hot nights and abundance of mosquitoes Muddy darkness alleviated somewhat by the amber flicker of fireflies Fireflies frogs gulp and yell cricket sing a sharp noise like a ringing in the ears Fish jump and flop an occasional dog bays For the sake of secrecy Montgomery orders the steam engines cut as low as possible Riding the tide to hush their movements when they get closer to the rice fields They can hear the burble of the bobble inks called rice birds who lurk and wait for early fall When they will fatten themselves before the harvest By dawn the Adams and the Harriet have reached their first destination about 20 miles up river They drop anchor on the Colleton County side of the Cumbie. The Sun is rising over the flat fields red and slow Fog rolls across the land having just finished their breakfast the laborers have taken up their hose and are moving into the fields At first light Montgomery orders a steady pipe of the steam whistle and Simultaneously sends troops and rowboats to the bank and into the fields The people was all a hoeing an old man named minus Hamilton will remember They was a hoeing in the field when the gunboats came And when the fog rolls off and the Sun comes through the workers can see the boats and the black men in blue uniforms Rising from the river armed and standing upright with their heads up and they drop their tools and run From the rebels there's no response after sending several false reports of approaching troops Pickets have been warned against making precipitous alerts and so instead of firing off warning signals They send messages to notify the planters and drivers Negro troops they report are approaching In 1905 remembering the raid Harriet will break into laughter. I never seen such a site Some was getting their breakfast just taking their pots of rice off the fire And they put a cloth on top of their heads and set that on rice is smoking Young one hanging on behind one hand around the mother's forehead to hold on the other digging in the rice pot Eating with all his might and she laughs again remembering women holding tied up white blankets on their heads with their things done up Any woman who didn't have a pot of rice had a child two in her arms are holding on to her dress Some were carrying two children sometimes twins one in each hip one hanging on her neck and the other at her forehead Some had pigs in bags thrown over their shoulders Some carried flapping chickens tied by the legs the pigs squealing the chickens squawking all running running running to the boat By now overseers slave drivers and plantation owners have streamed out into the fields to threaten the escaping workers Brandishing whips and guns to creed death to any man a woman who disobeys orders and doesn't follow them back toward the woods Some called to the fleeing workers to run and hide saying Yankees are going to sell them to Cuba Nobody pays them any mind every man and woman in the field heads straight to the boat Weeks afterward minus Hamilton describing the morning to Thomas Wentworth Higginson says While this master was shouting run to the wood Yankee come see you to Cuba He went to the boat with his wife. He wearing only a shirt and pantaloons. She was only the frock and curches She had on they left their blankets tied up on the bank and ran toward the black soldiers who were so presumptuous They came right ashore and held up their heads When Higginson asked Hamilton his age. He says he's 88 My old master keeps all the ages in a big book and when we come to the age of sense we mark them down every year so we know When Higginson asked Hamilton if he thinks he's too old to have come away Hamilton thinks Higginson must be joking too old for calm Never too old for leave the land of bondage. I old to give a thousand thanks every day so That that was the picture of what happened the boats became so crowded that they began to sink and James Montgomery asked Harriet to sing a song that would sort of calm the people because they were panicked for good reason because the slave owners were just behind them the plantation owners and Would come and hurt them torture them Capture them and take them back But they were the Union troops were in charge and they had to calm the fleeing workers So that they wouldn't sink the boat and they could wait for the next boat to come and take them So it was Harriet who sang the song. There's a famous picture which is in the book a drawing That was in the Harper's magazine of the time of the boat landing and all the people the rice workers coming down from the fields onto the boat and when they got back to To shore There was a big meeting of people and apparently according to Wisconsin newspaper Harriet spoke. She is not named but it is she's called a former slave woman who Was the head the captain of the expedition she's called and that's the first time After that that her actual name is used in print before that She's not been known except as a sort of legendary figure of Moses who leads people to the promised land Which is across the Mason-Dixon line I'd like to talk a little bit and about why I wrote this book how I came to write it and And What it meant to me to write it. It's it's a question. I'm often asked and The somebody I worked with them setting up this event said it was the first question She would like me to answer or to Look at and so I would like to do that I Write the book I wrote before this one was also a non-fiction book. It was about Madame CJ Walker There's also an African-American woman who lived from I see some nods 1867 to 1919 and so I had done a lot of her search on American history of that period and the period before her birth during slavery and in the Civil War and I was Very very moved and interested in the abolitionist moved by and interested in the abolitionist period of American history which is pretty incredible and It first of all there was that second of all To go back even farther. I grew up in a town in which I was the minority race We were I grew up in Greenville, Mississippi which at that time was about 40 percent white and 60 percent black and the 40 percent included we had a very large Asian population Chinese and a Substantial population from the Middle East as well and so white included that so the the town was overwhelmingly African-American. I have been thinking about race My whole life, it's always been a part of my life and Questions about why things were they were the way they were have always puzzled me and so it's It's not something I came to 10 years ago or 15 years ago when I began writing the Madame Walker book It was an opportunity to explore the questions. I've had my whole life and and also to find out how in the world somebody could do what Madame Walker Could do to come out of poverty. She came out of the sharecropper washer woman life. She came out of to become a Millionaire and a woman of great style and substance and how Harriet Tubman This was a small woman Who was unlearned unschooled? She had maybe some of you know She was hit by a flying weight That was thrown at somebody else when she was about 12 or 13 and hit her in the forehead and after that she had fits of narcolepsy So you think about somebody making her way through slave country with patrollers and Slave catchers and vigilantes and price on her head And she falls asleep from time to time and this is attested to throughout her life People describe how she would not off in the middle of a sentence and stay off for maybe 10 seconds Maybe 20 seconds maybe 30 come back and finish her sentence There are people who believe she had temporal lobe epilepsy which sometimes comes from a knock in the head and often when people have that they begin to To have visions and sometimes they are Visions that come true. They are not their visions of the future and that's it seems that that's what happened with Harriet After she got the blow she began to she said the Lord gave them to her and maybe the Lord did I don't know how she could see what she could see but she never lost She said a passenger on her underground railroad No one ever died. No one was caught And there are many times when and then she's not the only one to Testify to this when she would come to a particular place in the road they always went and something would tell her don't go that way go the other way and It was a correct Advice because the patrollers were there or the slave catchers were there so However, she got the information. She got it. So I'm looking at I was asked if I wanted to write this book about Harriet Tubman and all of these difficulties were both Challenging they were daunting and they were very inviting Because to people talk a lot about me why Harriet Tubman? Why madam Walker? Why write a book about I mean It's a book about cod. It's a book about corn. You know why? Subject matter is one thing, but our interest in writers goes beyond that the purest matter of the subject Into a sense of wonder. What is this about? Why is this? What happened to you? How could she do that? Why did she do that? I wrote a book about a murderer who Acknowledged that she was a murderer and told me and told a jury exactly how she committed to murders and My question was and and yet she was a loving person And my question that book was not What was it like to kill somebody? It was not a true crime book. It was not about murder It was about how these extremes of what I felt was good and what seemed to be evil in These murders that she commit could commit did commit could exist in the same Heart soul and life that was what I wanted to find out and in this book I wanted to know what How Harriet Tubman could do what she could do that was That was one thing And the other thing was to go back there to To have an opportunity to write about a true American hero These opportunities do not come along often a real hero an unadulterated hero There's nothing about her that you can say well, yes, but this yes, but she was on the wrong side of that No, she was she is our hero and I thought why would I turn down this opportunity? Because it will never come again. I'm sure and It is not the daunting part is not what I should pay attention to I Should pay attention to the fact that I feel privileged and honored to be allowed this opportunity So those were a couple of things that went and then the final thing I think was a quote and Frederick Douglass I quoted earlier I had read the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and any of you who haven't I urge you to they're just and wonderful and When Sarah Bradford published her first bar about a biography She asked some people to send in letters Devalidate that Harriet Tubman had actually done what she said she'd done so that people wouldn't just say Oh, it's all just a story. She didn't really do that How could one woman do that and one of the people she asked was Frederick Douglass and I'm going to read you part of the letter and this I thought man Frederick Douglass can write this. I'm on this train and He wrote it to her dear Harriet I'm glad to know that the story of your eventful life has been written by a kind lady and That the same is so soon to be published you ask for what you do not need when you call upon me for a word of commendation I need such words from you far more than you can need them from me Especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them The difference between us is very marked Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public And I've received much encouragement at every step of the way You on the other hand have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day you in the night I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude While the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling scarred and foot sore bond bondsmen and women whom you have let out of the house of bondage and whose heartfelt God bless you has been your reward The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witness of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism Accepting John Brown of sacred memory. I know of no one who has willingly encountered more Perils and hardships to serve our enslaved enslaved people than you have Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you It is to me a great pleasure and a great privilege to bear testimony to your character and your works and Decide of those whom you to whom you may come that I regard you in every way Truthful and trustworthy your friend Frederick Douglas. So I thought okay That'll do. I'm I'm in I want to give this ago and then what I had found out from working on the Walker book was in order to research People who were enslaved you have to go to courthouse records of white people who were slave owners because Enslaved people were not listed as people they now were not considered people and so to get any kind of court records any kind of assessment records any kind of audits or Taxes tax records you have to go to courthouses and look for The names of the white people who were owners in that same area. That's where I started and I Harriet was from the eastern shore of Maryland and I went to that town and spent a lot of time in the courthouse there and Annapolis in the archives where a lot of papers are there and If you read the book, you'll see there's I have included in here a lot of Documents little snippets of a document that I think are Importance, they're copied and the publisher work very hard to get these in there because they're very very hard to read and hard to Make legible some of them aren't exactly legible, but they show you that The the document exists If you want to go look for them you too could go look at that Document one of the most important one for instance was there's always been a lot of controversy about when Harriet Tubman's exact birth date and place are and There is a Ledger that Her I have to use the term owner because even though I hate to because I'm as I point out in here No one owns somebody else, but that's how they were thought of then and that's how they thought of themselves And that's how the enslaved people regarding them But her owner was a minor his stepfather kept a ledger Expenses that he accrued in in taking care of the enslaved people who belong to his stepson among the Lists of expenses was a charge by a midlife who gave aid in the birth of a child to a woman named Ritt Harriet Tubman's mother's name was Harriet and she was called Ritt or Riddia and The child who was born to Ritt at that time was Harriet And there's just no if you know I can't go into the how we know who which child was born in which I order But because he kept that ledger You can look at that date and see when at least when the midwife was paid That maybe she came a week before that maybe two weeks of that but in that season in 1822 In that county Was born the child called Aramanta Ross who became Harriet Tubman and so we put that document in the book a An image of it so that and again, it's very hard to read But it's transcribed below and you can actually so you see the handwriting when I wanted John Brown wrote a letter after he met Harriet Tubman he wrote a letter To his son John Brown, Jr. And said I have just met the most of a man and her name is Harriet Tubman and It's in his hand and It's also very hard to read and we looked at it and so we can't really read it And I said that's all right It's John Brown's handwriting and if it's translated or transcribed below You know if you if you study it or use a magnifying glass you can read it well enough So I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there and I did want to point out one thing here I don't know if any of you all And this is about the writing of history if you all noted the piece in the New Yorker of not this week but last by Jill LePore and It's it has to do with the recent So-called memoirs that were made up That's why she wrote it, but it's not specifically about that It's about the difference between history and fiction and the history of history and the history of the writing of fiction and how until the 19th century People didn't think that a list of facts was history now I got flack from historians about this book and biographers saying what she doesn't know that why does she is in your her imagination? Which I mean I don't get it. I don't know how you write history We write it from where we are now from what we know now. I write it as me If you wrote this book you would write a different book There's something like 19 biographies of Benjamin Franklin now. Those aren't just a litany of He was born he lived, you know, he flew the kite. He died. They each have a point of view But this is what these are mostly quotes from Otherwise, but she hears a here a couple of quotes This is from the English writer William Godwin In an essay called of history and romance which he wrote in 1797 There is not and never can be any such thing as true history Godwin insisted Nothing is more uncertain more contradictory more unsatisfactory than the evidence of facts Every history is incomplete. This is still before every historian has a point of view Every historian relies on what is unreliable Documents written by people who are not under oath and cannot be cross-examined That is to say even the best historian has a good deal in common with Jane Austen's book Called partial prejudice and ignorant historian Before his imperfect source sources the historian is powerless and this is Jane Austen He must take what they choose to tell the broken fragments and the scattered ruins of evidence He could decide merely to reproduce his sources to offer a list of facts But this is in reality. No history He that knows only on what day the Bastille was taken and on what spot Louie the 16th perished knows nothing And this is from Tula for History concerns facts But because they have to be arranged and explained the historian is a dealer not in certainties But probabilities and is therefore a room answer So you can you know you can chew on that I'm happy to answer any questions any of you have Yes Right You know I don't know where Mason Mason and Dixon were people who measured didn't they Yeah Yeah Right the high River where she was going from Maryland up to Pennsylvania it was They are at the Pennsylvania line And that's pretty much how it seems she always went there some Questions of the if she went some other way from time to time How many people that she brought out is a question that people Have many many Opinions on 300 is the magic number It seems from all the evidence There probably weren't 300 but how many there were and how many she helped Which she didn't actually go down and get is completely unknown There could be hundreds of people because she navigated she navigated her niece and her niece's husband and their two children up The Chesapeake to Baltimore and then out without going down there So she was a source of information for many many people how many she actually Took with her is a figure that people I I didn't get into it because my you know my sense of it was if you get up of enslavement and you go back once I Worrying about one person or no people I mean what if you went back and everybody said no no no I'm too scared You still went back and so that to me is an act of heroism. I you know I When we read these things we wonder what I have done it and you know We like to think we might have but it's it's hard to say because it was it was a terrifying things to do I She went back by herself, but other people did help other people but now with her she was she operated alone and You know, it's kind of understandable because she knew What the dangers were she knew where the difficult places were she trusted her instincts? And Also, she was very tough on the people she told them if you start to go back But she had a gun with her she never killed anybody, but she said she would kill them because anybody who was too We to go on would go back and say, you know, they're up there by the the chess piece, you know And she knew that she would hold to that line if you were late She went I mean her brothers were late one time she went So she kept she ran a tight Ship or railroad That's right And this The surveyors Right But you know what I never in all the research I did I never heard one abolitionists are one person involved at the Underground Rail would call it the Mason vixen line Now it was always this river or that river that you had to cross it didn't have anything to do with somebody's Line, I think today is the first time I've ever used the words Okay She never learned to read or write and she was Some a woman in Massachusetts Attempted to teach her but this is way late in her life she was probably in her 40s by then and It just what Franklin Sanborn wrote this and said she's not succeeding or it's not it's not happening There are a few reasons that might You might think about one is the damage to her head second is it's hard to learn to read when you that all Third is that she didn't She trusted what she had she trusted her voices and she said she never had to think about train schedules She just went and sat at the train. I mean that was her life and that's how she operated And so maybe she felt like just the same way she Went alone That it would interfere, you know that she wouldn't then have her voices. I this is I'm just speculating here Yeah, that's what I'm saying that her intuition might be affected by that and she wanted to She'd done some powerful things and she didn't want it interfered with but you know some kind of Different way of operating than she already had what was the other day absolutely Harriet Tubman use quilt She did say that she had made a quilt that she gave to a white lady The before she left right before she left and undoubtedly that was how Leverton the Quaker lady who helped her She could not this just as you cited She could not give it to anybody in her family because that would mean they knew she was leaving and if they knew Then they they would have to say these were and her father was a truth teller and he never wanted to know when his sons or anybody was leaving because when the Plantation owner came and said have you seen your son? He could say no, and he wasn't lying So she could not give it to her family. She was not a seamstress, so it's sort of It's sort of funny to imagine her. She was real outdoor person who liked to you know Chop and hoe and left and she was really strong sitting making a quilt, but maybe she did That's all right They may not I for you, and we turned back to the slave owners. And many people were hanged close along the way. And the slave, and because it's the enlightenment that moved, our people were not allowed to read or write, and people would be killed if they started our people to read or write. So this was never just like jumps. Jumps were a form of communication. And that's what the folks were a form of communication. And now in such a highly organized and priceless form, the artists we've been, we don't use for them kids anymore. You use them to hang on the floor. Oh. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody, what about the songs? We mentioned that in the past. And the use of songs to relay information. Oh, yeah. You also mentioned that. Oh, yeah. I mean, she had songs that said, don't come. It's dangerous now. She said, and when she sang, go down Moses was the plantation owners bad, the singing of go down Moses. But she was known as Moses because of Moses leading his people across the Red Sea. And she would sing that, and they would know that Moses was there. There were other songs that says, let's go, time to go. And this was a way of communicating. She'd go out in the woods. She never went to people's houses. Word would pass, Moses is coming, Moses is coming. And one man came to her father once, to Harriet's father, and said, tell me when Moses is going to be here next. And she would go out in the woods and sing, which meant, whoever wants to come, come on. And they would hear it. And word would have been sent around ahead of time saying, she's coming to sing, she's coming to sing. And they would gather. But it was all, I mean, as the lady says, it was against the law to learn to read and write. But just oppressed people learned how their oppressors operate. And they know how to work that way of operating. They know the clues better than the people do know of themselves. They pay attention, and they find their own ways of communication. Drums are a way of communicating musical instruments, singing, and all that. How could she talk? Oh, man, she could talk. You can talk. She just couldn't. And the way she talked was, this is why oral history is so important, because people told her stories. And people told her mother's stories. And all the history was handed down. That's the history they had. She knew, for instance, her mother told her that she should have been freed when she was 45 years that that was in the will of the man who had enslaved her. And that was a story that had been handed down from her grandmother to her mother to Harriet. And Harriet went and hired a lawyer. She was able to, she could freelance sometimes. She had, she was quite an operator. I mean, she was an entrepreneur of a kind. People liked her and they trusted her. And she paid a lawyer to look back and find that will. And he did. And she should have been freed. But she was not, even though it's said in the will, that she should have been freed. But she could talk plenty. I mean, she could tell stories. She could perform. She could sing. People loved to hear her talk. She could entertain. I mean, if you could read the descriptions of what it was like when she would go to meetings of abolitionists to raise money for the Underground Railroad. And she would perform. And tell what it was like to be in slavery. Because there was a myth around that the slaves were happy. And so she went to say, this is what it's like. And she was really affected. And she did research individuals who were enslaved. You have to research the people who were enslaved and all of them. And also, you know, likewise, there were many people, white people, who have been voiced for Harriet. Because she was not leading right over the years and years and years. And her story has been told. And I'm assuming, based on your story, that you identify as white, right? I'm identified as white. Or do you? Are you?  So I was wondering what insights you had in researching and telling her story and writing this book on race and sociopolitically, in regard to having created this other story, another story. I don't know exactly how to answer that. I mean, I would not have written this book or the book before if I hadn't been, first of all, interested in race and also horrified by our history, American history. And I keep saying she is our hero because I think she is. And I think she is, her story is a necessity to be told. Whoever tells it. And I heard from a historian who wrote another biography of Harriet Tubman a few years ago. And she wrote an email and said, may a thousand Harriet's bloom. And that's been my position of, I mean, there can be that many biographies of Benjamin Franklin. I mean, whether the person is a man or a woman or a black person or a white person, I think whatever he or she can bring to the story of her heroism and her accomplishments would be useful and a good part of our education as a country to pay attention to these things. But as I said, race has been on my mind from child, babyhood, whenever I started thinking.  You hear more about Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. You hear more about those types of people. But you know, he is so much different African-Americans throughout history who make different school, which is important at that time. Do you think that as the years go on, as people change, as the world evolves, that there will be more examples of people who weren't born in history so that the younger behind us can know more than just Harriet Tubman and why would it change? Right. You know, the same thing? I do. I do. And I think absolutely that's going to happen. And we'll have more biographies of women of all colors, because that's the other part of this equation. The many, many more biographies of male, whatever it is, soldiers, artists, writers, then there are of female. But it's probably been too long coming. But at least things have changed somewhat a little bit. And she said, mm-hmm. I didn't hear that. Can somebody? I thought it was the language of Harriet Tubman's speech. One. Marilyn. You know what she said when she went down to South Carolina and people on the island were people who are called Gullah background. And she said, I couldn't understand them. They couldn't understand me. So it wasn't just slave language. It was in a particular region. And you, mm-hmm. It was not built, you know. It was, you know, you've seen how it used to be firemen, past people in buckets along. That's the Underground Railroad was something like that. It was me doing my part here and somebody else doing his part here and somebody else doing his part there. The Underground Railroad had to remain secret, because it was illegal. People could have been put in prison for a long time for participating in it. So it.  It was called, and it's not known where the phrase came from. There was one, there's somebody said, that somebody else said that some enslaved people were escaping and it seemed like they disappeared, like there was an Underground Railroad that whisked them away across the Ohio River. And so it became, that may or may not be how the phrase became, but it set once it was there. And now it's, I mean, there's a book of a really important book called The Underground Railroad, which is a man in Philadelphia who kept the record of enslaved people who came through there on their way to Canada. So it was called that then as well. I work for Caledonia State Park, which is located 20 miles west of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And it's also located just north of Mason Dixie Line. And it's 18,000 acres that was owned by the abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. And Thaddeus Stevens lost money on the Caledonia fireworks the 30 years that he owned it from 1830 to 1865. And so the certain standard evidence is that Caledonia fireworks was just a front business for the Underground Railroad. Oh really? We think it was a major conduit, but there's no real clear evidence, direct evidence. I didn't know if you had any. I did not know, but Thaddeus Stevens was a real hero. Right. Yeah, I don't know. Anybody else? Thank you so much. Now you know why I wanted very much to have family here with us. I want to remind you again that her book, Harriet Tubman, a biography imagining a life is on sale in the gift store, she has signed it. They're signed copies down here, so they're extra special. And if you have any other questions afterwards, maybe she'll be happy to answer them. Thank you so much for coming today.