On March 8, 2020, we gathered at the Uncommon Ground Restaurant, 1401 West Devon Ave., Chicago. Our speaker, NU Professor Daniel Immerwahr treated us to a fascinating relook at American History to understand the Greater United States. This was an exceptionally well received talk notable for its big picture reassessment of American History and spiced with many intriguing details.

And only one week later we may say that his talk was part of some Great Before (the Corona Virus) since in the week that followed we have already experienced a cultural shift notable for a massive plunge in the stockmarket, declarations of Emergency at Federal, State and local levels with curtailments in international travel and wide spread closing of schools and some businesses. At at a personal level substitutes for handshakes have made their appearance first at our event and on TV at the Presidential level. Will this be some passing fad or some profound shift into a kind of social distancing? Time will tell.

Professor Immerwahr's book, How to Hide an Empire, (See Amazon for all variants) was highly recommended by Jim Franch, our VP of Membership. The main theme was the US had an empire that was never explicitly acknowledged. This is a contrast to the British Empire which was explicitly celebrated by the British as the largest empire in human history. In the case of the American Empire, it was not even acknowledged on December 7, 1941 when FDR focused on Pearl Harbor and barely mentioned the Philippines, which was also attacked by the Japanese Empire that day.

For example, in the Philippines, US territory from 1898 to 1946, almost a million civilians and military were killed in WWII. This is more than the total of both North and South in the US Civil War and about twice the US military deaths in WWII.

We had our usual drinks and discussion before the talk, celebrated a new member, our Foundation Scholar and several guests.

On June 6, 2020, we had our first Zoom meeting. In 2020 during the Covid pandemic crisis, Zoom became the techology solution for organizations to gather on the internet in lieu of meeting in person. Illinois was still under lockdown restrictions when we had our annual Fundraiser for Foundation Scholars.

What is Zoom? The Wikipedia article gives the basic overview. The incredible acceleration of its business in 2020 was recognized when it joined the NASDAQ-100 index on April 30, 2020. The company website is here. The company was founded in 2011 and had a decade to grow and polish its product when the Covid Pandemic skyrocketed its product. Our chapter stayed in the mainstread using it in 2020. Our meeting was conducted by Keith Sbiral, our Co-Director of Publicity.

Our chapter has been one of the most active in supporting Foundation Scholars in the Circumnavigators Club. Every year of the 21st century, we have supported a student to make a circumnavigation of our planet in order to do research on a topic of their choice. See all of our Scholars here.

Chris LaMountain made his circumnavigation last summer. His topic was "A Global Song: Investigating the Global Diversity of Baha'i Temple Music". There are only 8 Baha'i temples on our planet. And the only Baha'i temple in North America is a ten minute walk from the Northwestern temple.

This year our Foundation Scholar from 2019, Chris LaMountain made his presentation via Zoom. First he explained an overview of his trip, then showed a YouTube video of his trip. And, of course, answered our many questions. His 32 minute YouTube impressed us with its contents and technical polish. And, of course, there were musical selections in his YouTube.

The 2 photos below are screen shots taken by our technical host Keith Sbiral. Click to enlarge the photos. This rectangle of individual locations is what our club members see on their home computers or iPads. As members join or drop out, the Zoom software automatically reconfigures the rectangle. And members can freely move off camera to get a drink of water or whatever. Some members only had an audio connection. In general, members had a good experience with Zoom. This and similar technologies were all the rage around the world in 2020 to cope with social distancing restrictions. While Chris was making his presentation, the audience members were not visible to each other. One advanced point is that members (for example, Dan, Don and Keith) can select some favorite photo instead of the actual backround of their room.

On October 27, 2020, we had a Zoom presentation by Don Parrish entitled "My Visit to 6 Remote Islands" and subtitled "Welcome to My World". This was a long presentation of 75 minutes with maps at different scales, photos, videos, and stories.

There was interest from other chapters and the advantage of Zoom was we could allow it. We had a much larger attendance than usual. We were priviledged to have the President of the Circumnavigators Club, David Mink in attendance at Don's highly anticipated talk. Since these islands are rarely visited even by top travelers, this was new material for everyone. And it was well received.

Don focused on the barriers to get to these islands because of Government restrictions, the need to travel by small chartered boats and the uncounted dangers. Don observed this is not a talk about scenery.

The one island that everyone had heard of, but not visited was Iwo Jima. There is a report on Iwo Jima with a video slideshow set to music on his website.

Another island was familiar by name to members of the Travelers Century Club (TCC), because it is the hardest one on the TCC list to visit. It is the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Don is one of only two dozen intrepid travelers who have completed the TCC list. He was awarded a high tech trophy by the TCC President at a meeting in California in 2017. His TCC Award Report also includes some photos of BIOT.

Since Don attended the Zoom presentation of the Annual Meeting of the Circumnavigators Club where President Mink recently discussed some of the Lore of the Circumnavigators Club, Don started by sharing his own piece of Club Lore. It happened at the Chicago chapter meeting in 1990 when he received his Circumnavigators Certificate and the Chicago Chapter was gifted our Earth Rise Photo which has been passed from Chapter President to Chapter President.

Don took his certificate out of the frame and asked our speaker that evening James Lovell, of Appolo 8 & 13 fame, to autograph it. Lovell was happy to agree and issued a challenge. He wrote: "You have 421 times to go". As an astronaut, Lovell had made 421 circumnavigations around our planet.

Later in 2011, Don remembered the idea of Lovell's challenge, but transformed it to honor Roald Amundsen on the 100th anniversary of his arrival at the South Pole by making 100 circumnavigations by walking around the South Pole 100 times in about 2 hours. Don recorded his time and step counts in a log book every 10 circumnavigators using a pencil. Because of the extreme cold, he knew a normal ball point pen would not work. His trip was documented in a Log article and in an extensive report on his website.

On December 9, 2020, we had a Zoom Holiday Party. These are fun events normally held in an atmospheric restaurant or even a private mansion. But in this Year of the Virus it was held via Zoom.

Our President Jeneane Blom had a very short business meeting. She praised the excellent work by Tim Foulas in creating our first Chapter Directory with a nice photo and short structured pieces of background infomation on each participating member. One of the ideas for the directory was to help new members learn about the existing members. However, existing members also learned about existing members too. It was a real hit!

It was a fun party with the theme of "Tall Train Tales". In advance of the party, we sent one photo per person to Jim Franch and we sent our Tall Train Tale title to Mary Houston, who moderated the event. There was only 1 rule: Stay under 3 minutes to give everyone a chance. Some wrote out their short talk and others winged it. But everyone stayed within their time limit.

And these talks were from places all over the globe. Some were luxury trains for special life moments. Other trips were on steam trains or on local trains with the natives. This was a classic self organizing activity.

And one of the delightful aspects of our Chapter is that all members are travelers so good questions got asked. There were many insightful comments. And there was sharing of observations about similar trips triggered by a tall tale. Wonderful back and forth.