Lafayette In The The Spring

No, that is not a typo. It’s a reference to a classic optical illusion. You probably have seen it—a triangle that contains three lines. The first line is “Paris.” The second line is “in the.” The last line is “the Spring.” People will often read it as “Paris in the Spring,” not the correct “Paris in the the Spring.”

I know, I know … This thought immediately pops into your head: “But it’s obvious that the word ‘the’ is repeated.”

And you wouldn’t be wrong.

Until you look at the picture of the triangle with the words in it.

Why is that?

Believe it or not, there’s a scientific explanation for this. It comes from vision science, and it’s called a “saccade.” This term refers to what happens when both eyes move simultaneously in quick fashion. They jump around between multiple focal points. In the process, they pick out what’s important and fill in the rest.

If this sounds similar to the current state of artificial intelligence, you wouldn’t be too far from the truth. In a saccade sequence, your eyes tell your brain the key points (or, in the case of our optical illusion, the key words). Your brain then fills in the rest with what makes the most sense. Since “Paris in the Spring” sounds better than “Paris in the the Spring,” your brain tells you to skip the second “the.”

The key to this illusion is the triangle. The sentence in the triangle is split up into three parts. It’s not linear, as in the title above. Most text appears in a linear format. Your eyes perform differently when viewing straight lines. Vision scientists refer to this as a “smooth-pursuit movement.” Here, the eyes move—you guessed it—smoothly. They don’t jump around as they do in a saccade.

Here’s an interesting fact. The word “saccade” derives from the French word meaning “jerk.” This doesn’t refer to a rude person, but to a sudden jolt or shake. It’s kind of what the eyes are doing.

Speaking of the French, as you might have guessed from the contents of last week’s paper, I have completed the book tour for History Unleashed: Lafayette’s Remarkable Tour of the Greater Western New York Region. Although the tour officially began in February, most of the events took place in April and May. It ended with a flourish in the first week of June. So “Lafayette in the Spring” isn’t too far off.

Unlike my usual book talks, this one had a feeling of a traveling road show. I wonder if this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, Lafayette’s 1824/1825 tour was the equivalent of a rock star tour. Going in, I wanted to create that feeling for the audience. We intentionally designed the book tour poster in the style of the iconic 2015 Rolling Stones tour poster.

What a whirlwind tour it was! As the host said at the introduction at the Bristol Hills event, I made more stops in Western New York than Lafayette did. Of course, I had three months; Lafayette only had three days. On the other hand, Lafayette had only one job to do, and I have at least three.

There’s another aspect that made this like a rock star tour: I had a Hollywood publicist in charge of running it (that would be my daughter Cesidia, who has shepherded tours for Tinseltown names you’ll recognize). Her work gave me the much-needed time to work on my other jobs.

It was great; she laid out each week’s itinerary, telling me who to meet, when to meet them, and even where to park my car. It was like I would unplug myself from my day job and plug right into her schedule. The amazing thing is that she did this, for the most part, from the West Coast, three hours behind the actual events.

Of course, when she did come back home for the last leg of the tour, having her travel with me made it all the more special. She got to meet, in person, all the people she’d been emailing and phoning. I got to see her in action as a frontline professional. I didn’t have to do any of the logistics. I could focus all my attention on the performance. Talk about smooth!

Now, about all those people. I was so impressed with each and every one of them. From librarians to curators of local history societies, they were all gracious and enthusiastic hosts. They delighted in sharing their knowledge of the town’s history with me, providing me with interesting tidbits that I could allude to during one of the many off-script rabbit holes my presentations inevitably took.

Those rabbit holes—that’s what makes the adventure worth taking. You never know where you’ll end up. I found them while researching the book. They appeared during the course of my talk—who knows where, who knows when. I even started this column with one (did you notice?). They’re so much fun. You should try falling into one the next time you have a chance. It’s a pleasant interlude in the routine of life.

Here’s something expected: during the tour, I saw several buildings that I had written about. Many of the structures have been replaced long since. But a few still stand. Some as landmarks. Others as nondescript houses. All, however, represent a piece of our shared history.

Here’s something unexpected: I actually met people who lived in a few of those buildings. Howell’s Tavern in Cambria and Ball’s Tavern on the road from Canandaigua to Geneva no longer serve as inns, but as residential homes. Both individuals were interested in obtaining a roadside marker indicating the significance of the building. I shared with them whatever relevant research I had and pointed out who they needed to contact.

A similar thing happened during the early stages of researching sources for the book. I spoke with the Town Historian of Ripley in Chautauqua County, where Lafayette first entered Western New York from Pennsylvania. He wanted a roadside marker, too, but, try as I might, I couldn’t find a contemporary newspaper article that said Lafayette passed through there.

Strike that.

I did find when the contemporary newspaper article was published, but not the actual article itself. The relevant page from that issue of the Fredonia Censor is lost to history. The granting organization wouldn’t accept a reprint from the same paper published verbatim five decades later. The historian made his own arrangements and purchased the marker out of pocket without obtaining a grant for it. He invited me to say a few words at the unveiling.

That unveiling in Ripley started the final week of the tour at the place representing the beginning of Lafayette’s tour through Western New York. I ended the week in Auburn, the last place Lafayette visited before leaving our region for Central New York. In between, well, that could fill an entire column by itself.

Don’t worry. I won’t. Suffice it to say, as the keynoter for the annual convention of the American Friends of Lafayette (AFL) in Buffalo, I had to reduce my usual performance time by half. “We don’t want them to fall asleep,” said the organizer. He assumed I’d give the usual dry speech of an academic historian. He didn’t know I majored in Astronomy and Physics, not history. He also didn’t know I cut my chops as a top-rated AM disc jockey (when AM still played music).

What they got was, in terms that Monty Python aficionados might appreciate, “now for something completely different.”

Now, there’s always a risk when you give erudite audiences something closer to stand-up comedy rather than the professorial lecture they are more accustomed to. (Yes, my talks were often billed as lectures.) But I’m willing to take that gamble. I’m confident that, given the choice, people would rather laugh in public than snooze in the middle of a crowd.

And those folks at the AFL convention loved to smile at a good story. How do I know? Not only did I take up more than my allotted time, but they came back and asked me to tell more stories throughout the weekend.

Saturday, June 7, stood out as the pinnacle of the tour (See page 4 for pictures). After a year of planning, the Daughters of the American Revolution (together with the Sons of the American Revolution, the Monroe District Masons, and the Alliance Francaise of Rochester), hosted several events. Thanks to Cesidia, we got plenty of pre-publicity the week before, most notably through an appearance on the Bob Lonsberry show.

The day began with Lafayette landing at the Corn Hill Marina. Many modern-day notables, including the Mayor of Rochester and the County Executive, reenacted the entire 1825 welcoming scene. I was honored to be asked to play the role of William B. Rochester, son of the city’s founder, Nathaniel Rochester. W.B. offered the official welcome in 1825. It was a lengthy speech, filled with words straight from Roget’s Thesaurus, but I put my best 19^th-century oratorical flourish to work. I had no idea what a 19^th-century oratorical flourish was, let alone what the “best” one sounded like, so I just read it like I imagined William Shatner would read it. A 19^th-century William Shatner. It seemed to work.

The truly best thing about the day was that it didn’t rain. All week, the forecast called for rain, maybe even thunderstorms. This was important because we intended to drive our Lafayette enactor in my father’s 1976 (yes, the bicentennial year) El Dorado Cadillac convertible from Rochester to Mendon and then on to Canandaigua for the parade. It was to be a game-time decision. We had several alternative plans, depending on what the radar looked like.

It turned out Plan A (with a slight variation) worked after all. The variation was that we didn’t take the top down until we got to Mendon. This would symbolize Lafayette’s changing carriages in Mendon.

In Canandaigua, Lafayette got to sit on the Caddy’s parade boot. We rolled through the streets in slow motion. I was driving. Maybe a little concerned that a sudden jerk (or “saccade”) might send our Lafayette tumbling backward onto the pavement. We arrived in one piece and all the people got to shake Lafayette’s hand.

Well, maybe not all the people. It seemed more than a few of them expressed a greater interest in the car than in the French General. They even wanted their pictures taken with the car.

I’m sure that would have made my father proud. I know it made my mother happy. She got to sit in the front passenger seat, offering her “parade wave” to all the people we passed by.

Speaking of Mom …  She accompanied me on nearly every one of the book tour events. She had seen me speak in the past, so she knew I was a bit of a ham. In the course of the tour, she discovered my performance secrets. She didn’t just discover them, she absorbed them. Very quickly, she started asking why I left certain things out. I said it was because I needed more time to talk about the place we’re in.

About halfway through, she told me, “Don’t worry if you lose your voice and can’t speak, I can do the presentation for you. I even know all the jokes.”

OK, maybe not all the jokes. That’s because even I don’t know all the jokes until they appear. It’s that whole rabbit hole thing. They pop up out of nowhere.

But, in all seriousness, I can’t overstate what it meant for me to have my mother on the tour with me. There were times when I felt like a kid riding a bike for the first time. “Look, Ma! No hands!”

Thankfully, unlike that particular incident, this time, I needed no stitches.

A good show, however, might have left the crowd in stitches. And perhaps a pinch more knowledge than what they came with.

And, as an edu-tainer, nothing could be more gratifying.