Sorry, I skipped last week's post for the Fourth. But speaking of the Fourth, let's do some firsts. All holidays are thanksgivings, and on this one I recalled some lucky breaks, early on, including the first book I ever read.

The early 1970s were the heyday for America, for me, and for Richard Scarry. His books were the Biggest and Busiest and Best: huge spreads of messy activity for kids to look and look and look at. Even Nicky Goes to the Doctor, a minor work of reassuring propaganda and my first, opens with five pages of interracial mayhem:

But his best were the landscapes. An underrated landscapist, like George Orwell or Napoleon Bonaparte. The obvious example is his classic, What Do People Do All Day?

But his bestest was his Great Big Air Book:

Everyone is a worker! Richard Scarry, Nicky Goes to the Doctor, Golden Press, 1972. Richard Scarry, What Do People Do All Day, Random House, 1968, 90-91. Richard Scarry, Richard Scarry's Great Big Air Book, Random House, 1971, 52-53. Paul Johnson, Napoleon, Phoenix, 2003, 9, 23, 52, 125, 131. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Primary Documents: Nicky Goes to the Doctor," RSS Longa, 9 July 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

So a second June of counting the cottonwood's superiorities. Last year was hows; this year was wheres, including today: I want the cotton on me. I want a cottonwood shirt.

This online conversation suggests it's quite doable.

Maybe this suggested it: the German word for cotton is tree wool. On this one the English is better.

Though it's great how they call gloves handshoes. Handschuhe! Baumwolle! "Using Cottonwood Fiber," permies.com/t/26904/Cottonwood-Fiber. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Cottonwode II: The cotton of course," RSS Longa, 25 June 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

For June we're celebrating cottonwood season by admitting that they're just better than other trees. Partly for the place names.

Cottonwood is a lovely name for a town— or for a whatever; here's a map:

Right-click for full resolution

And then there’s the Alamos ("cottonwood") and Alamogordos ("big fat cottonwood").

But while populus may be popular it's not populous. They're all tiny.

Robert Wellman Campbell, "Cottonwode II: Poplartowns are popular," RSS Longa, 18 June 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

What are the best trees? I mean, come on. It's cottonwoods. Partly because they swing.

Last week I mentioned that cottonwoods grow on the edges of streams. That means a lot of of those kids swinging on a rope into a swimming hole were swinging from cottonwoods.

Maybe not as grand as Robert Frost on a birch or John Muir on a Douglas-fir. But I don't know— those kids had fun.

And may even still. Robert Frost, "Birches," Atlantic Monthly, 1915, via Poetry Foundation. John Muir, “A Wind Storm in the Forests of the Yuba,” Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, 1878, via Library of America. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Cottonwode II: Cottonwoods swing," RSS Longa, 11 June 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

Last June I wasted the whole month explaining the obvious, that the best tree is the cottonwood.

You didn't think I was done, did you?

Cottonwoods like it wet, so these days you'll often see one in just some low spot in a ditch. Hyperlocal. Lone Tree.

But that's some very modern landscape. Traditionally, more naturally, they were down in the river- and creeksides. Here's August Kuchler in small scale:

That means they’re there when you really need some wood. Everything else is burned. This is how Martin Brokenleg said the Lakota don't see the moon as less than the sun, because she comes to you when you really need the light.

Lone Tree: Wikipedia. Small scale as in a small map of that area and so less detailed; South Dakota is about two million feet wide, so at 1:7,500,000 this map was about three inches. Not much room for the crick. 45.1285 -96.7475. Kuchler, August W., 1964, Potential natural vegetation of the conterminous United States: in U.S. Geological Survey, 1970, The national atlas of the United States of America: Washington, USGS, scale 1:7,500,000, redraft from Robert Wellman Campbell, "South Dakota Vegetation Terms on Maps," 1997, robbcampbell.com. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Cottonwode II: Cottonwoods are creekside," RSS Longa, 4 June 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

Completing a month of college and turns. One last circle, the chaplain and kids graduating.

Via Jim Birney, Warren Hall, Ipseity, John Campbell, Eli Campbell, Robb Campbell, RSS Longa and Beehiiv.

Robert Wellman Campbell, "Grads: 'Hydro logic'" RSS Longa, 28 May 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

Dear Mark, Ryan, Benjamin, Jayco, Brian, Adam, Justin, Jennifer, Courtney, Michelle, Holly, Casey, John, Megan, Jeremy, Jennifer, Michael, Amy, Karen, LauraAnne, Robert, Natalie and Jennifer,

Remember when you hated my guts for saying that recycling is baloney?

University of Kansas, fall 1998, History 347, North American Environmental History, Wednesdays 10:30 up in Wescoe. And actually the green TA only acknowledged in aside to the undergrads how obviously no one thinks recycling is some major solution. Oh, the explosion, the word crime, the anger and denunciations, the chuffing and pouting and scowling for the rest of the term.

So how'd that turn out? I believe public opinion has "come around" on this. 200 grads = pi rads = 180°.

So young. I later realized that at a big university, with many courses to choose from, kids in environmental history were the greenies who ran recycling in high school. Which doesn't explain how it would clean up our driving, aviation, construction, agriculture, electricity and HVAC. But, you know, blue garbage cans.

Don't feel bad. Audiences still frown at this. And I have never lost one of these historical bets, because I was always only stating the obvious.

Besides, as I have told classes many times, you were my favorite class ever. On top of all the passion, Natalie, a petite little thing clearly practiced at swallowing air, would thereafter interrupt me mid-word with long loud belches, and then daintily peep in surprise "Oh excuse me! I'm so sorry!" Best student ever.

The first was in 1991, that in 2011 no one would be saying waitron. Quotes because what we call recycling isn't even recycling. Google Ngrams, dry water,waitron,green sky,Italian military victories. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Grads: 'Recycling'" RSS Longa, 21 May 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

For May I'm doing graduates and gradians. Today I'm bugging St. Olaf College to bring back these lovely circles. Like this one from graduation 1919:

This is just the thumbnail; click here to see the actual photo web

I wrote about this before, but I made mistakes so I'm upgrading. St. Olaf should photograph each class in their first and last week, and they should do so in this circle in the heart of the campus. The O was not just in hands and photos but the landscape itself, as you can see in this 1937 aerial photo:

And it's not just bringing back but moving forward. We can now complete the notion digitally, with each class in a seamless 360° band. I have never seen such a photo. And these circles are not just symbolic but practical, like skyscrapers; stacking people to the rear shrinks their heads to little invisible dots, so it’s much better to arrange them sideways:

Back rows pasted into the front, from a deep photo (left) and a wide one (right). Standing in back shrunk them about 83% on the left and maybe 2% on the right.

These panos are example of humans preferring hard over easy. Cirkut cameras were an amazing feat; my digital camera on a tripod was easy-peasy. But when things become easy they become low status, and humans operate by norms and status not pros and cons.

St. Olaf College is currently composed of 2020s Americans, and the odds are never great that 2020s Americans will act. But you never know!

Another example was many colleges canceling yearbooks just as the layout and distribution costs became trivial. The 2023 stereocard is a rare thing: the 3-D is a little underdone. Usually it's Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Pancakes. Thanks again to the St. Olaf College Archives for preserving these wonderful photos. Aerial photo WK-4-317, 1937-09-23, MHAPO. Shrunken heads: 19.206.60, St. Olaf College Archives. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Grads: Return the Olaf O," RSS Longa, 14 May 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

I have long lived by colleges, and every May my mind turns to them like the old guy attending commencement in You Can't Take It With You. So, collegey May.

Here I updated Ole Felland's 1915 photo of the Ole Store, the restaurant on the edge of St. Olaf College. See it here.

Sunday mornings are still Christmastime for the Rephotographers. As I shot this, on a lovely crisp sunny autumn morning at 9:43, lots of happy people sifted in for yummy-smelling brunch, but strangely none of them ended up in the photo. I've gotten lazy about shooting early and I have to repent and return, not for the people but the cars. Populi brevis, currus longa.

Or at night. Shiny happy people. Ole Roll bread pudding.

RSS Longa is a minute a week on landscape and history, free with no login at robbcampbell.com. Thanks again to the St. Olaf College Archives for the lovely photograph, Felland 1378. Follow the instructions to pan and zoom and jump through time. When I dusted this off after months I thought I was off, from the bike rack compared to the foreground tree. But oops the tree grew. Actually it's pretty toight, except for that one weird house. For fun you can play a game of Where's Weirdo. I suspect the shakes fooled the stitching program and it's one shake off. Image: paxer.net. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Grads: Ole Store," RSS Longa, 7 May 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

One last funny little thing that happened for just a minute.

Right-click these for full resolution

So, in remote-sensing terms, this was about the geometry not the radiometry. The sunshine's color was pretty enough, but what made it unusual is that it came through a very narrow slit on the western horizon. (A slit I somehow did not take or keep a picture of.) So the light was very horizontal and very sharp. The very opposite of the ring lights and reflective panels used to soften photos.

The usual reflector is the atmosphere; that twilight (secondary light) happens all day long, but you can see by the dark sky that it's not happening here. So it's a rarity, an untwilit sunset.

I do believe this is the only time I ever saw this.

Looks like a typo, doesn't it. First to last was four minutes. 2014-06-14-2034-48 through 2038-39, 44.4806 -103.8553. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Natural Ephemerals: Sharp," RSS Longa, 30 April 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

A short month of short phenomena. Landscapes are usually big and stayed and still; these are little and noisy and quick. Don't blink.

Click image to view video

Typical March, the whole landscape running sideways in sheets of water. This was more dessert than desert. And when I returned twenty-five minutes later it was gone.

So, whence the bubbles? Flowing down from upstream? Bubbling up from the culvert? Originating at that babbly interface at the base of the cone? And why a cone? Centrifugal force? And whither? (Did it flush?)

Bubble brevis, ponder longer.

And we normally don't think of anything circular as oscillation, but I couldn't tell you why. Someone argued that social oscillations (hemline up, hemline down) are indeed round at the end like Carmel's peanut-shaped roundabridges— that nations save not about- face. 2019-03-21-1455 44.4732 -93.1474. CBS Mornings, “Indiana city uses roundabouts to make roads safer while helping the environment,” YouTube. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Natural Ephemerals: Spun," RSS Longa, 23 April 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

Well, loud for a leaf. Like last week's but oscillating by water not wind. I could not for the life of me figure out where a sprinkler was running.

Click image to see video

Ironically that little whapping sound is hard to hear when mixed in with the noise of the Homestake Power Plant, a giant version of the very same thing. Mics mux.

2010-07-26 44.4803 -103.8554. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Natural Ephemerals: Loud," RSS Longa, 16 April 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

An easy month, of things that just happened, and just for a minute. Today, the antidote for last week's imprisoned leaf.

Click the image to see the video

Though, as here, the "Every Breath You Take" is usually better than the "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free." This photo was likely taken at the Carleton Arboretum; see, ironically, bad ephemeris. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Natural Ephemerals: Free," RSS Longa, 9 April 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

OK, last month got a little heavy with the history, so this month we'll go light with the landscape. On an XY chart of durable vs. artificial these would be down by the zeroes.

Ocean shells bind like this commonly, and surprisingly and durably. From my teen years in Florida I kept just one, my first. It hasn’t budged.

You may want to read these in your browser— email sometimes mangles. Watch for my Minnesota restaurant, Vista La Hasta. 44.4629 -93.1747, 27.6004 -80.3325. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Natural Ephemerals: Bound," RSS Longa, 2 April 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

Concluding a month of pronouncing our decades. So— who cares? If people don't say "teens" or “twenty-ohs" the world won't end, right?

Well, maybe it will as we know it.

As a young historian I looked down on people discussing history in decades, as was common then. ("Kids in the sixties rebelled." "Omigod that looks so eighties!") But now I think that was a pretty good periodization. A handy medium resolution like county-level maps. It was a narrative framework, and even a thesis production line. It nudged us toward looking bigger-picture and coming to conclusions.

And you can't do that if you can't say the words. How were the ohs, after all? What do we make of the teens? Even now in the twenties, a decade we could easily say, we haven't gone back to the habit. I mean, what would look twenties?

Worse, the void was filled by generations. Now we talk in terms of the supposed sequels to the Baby Boom: "Gen Z," "Millennials," and so forth. We've gone from a discourse of shared experience to one of division. From tracking big change to just yapping about yourself. From community to its cheap substitute identity.

And boy we have some big lethal rocks before the ship of state, some challenges to global civilization. We need to be able to talk about where we're going.

You thought I'd never get landscape this month, didn't you? History has its ::s to geometric and radiometric resolutions, and is defined by the medium one. And don't say "fourteenth century!" Alicia Parlapiano, "There Are Many Ways to Map Election Results. We’ve Tried Most of Them," New York Times, 1 November 2016. My cartogram's better. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Political Cartograms: The Electoral College," RSS Longa, 31 October 2024, public domain via CC0 1.0. Robert Wellman Campbell, "How to Say the Years: Why it Matters," RSS Longa, 26 March 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

This month we're doing some basic historical vocabulary, as republican therapy.

I remember Thanksgiving Friday 1999, which I spent photocopying old documents in the silent offices of the Black Hills National Forest. At lunch I read a news article about how Americans didn't know how to say the upcoming decade. I don't know how to spell this, but "ee yi," I thought, shaking my head in sad amazement. Very, very dispiriting.

To paraphrase Miss Daisy: Stop saying that; you're making me mad. If you know your years then you can say your decades.

Nineteen sixty-one
Nineteen sixty-two
Nineteen-sixties

Nineteen oh-one
Nineteen oh-two
Nineteen-ohs

Twenty oh-one
Twenty oh-two
Twenty-ohs

Twenty thirteen
Twenty fourteen
Twenty-teens

Good grief.

I associate this with the dot-com-bubble, the Clinton impeachment, Woodstock '99, Y2K, and other late-Nineties inanities. Not a smart moment. Let's crawl out of it.

And fey lefty wags calling it the naughts aren't helping. Driving Miss Daisy, Warner Bros. Pictures, 1989. Robert Wellman Campbell, "How to Say the Years: The Twenty-ohs," RSS Longa, 19 March 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

For March we are doing some rudimentary republic rehab. Repeat after me: "twenty hundred."

For here is the moment you went off track, America. Pronounce these years:

1800
1900
2000

Eighteen hundred, nineteen hundred, twenty hundred. Right around 1995, when you were already stupefying yourselves with Windows 95 and the OJ trial, you started obsessing on the 2, and among the Y2K silliness you forgot some things you already knew. You lost some vocabulary.

So let's exercise that atrophied ability:

1901 Nineteen oh-one
2001 Twenty oh-one
1910 Nineteen ten
2010 Twenty ten
1984 Nineteen eighty-four
2084 Twenty eighty-four

It's a serial number, not a quantity. I was not born in 1,968.

OK— next week we'll do decades.

Some good news, when I said twenty hundred the computer typed 2000. Google Books Ngram Viewer, year 2000, millennium, 1970-2022. "Conan & Andy - In the Year 2000 #1 (1997-01-01)," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmzpdd4pWvM&t=121s. Robert Wellman Campbell, "How to Say the Years: Twenty hundred," RSS Longa, 12 March 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

For March we'll do some very basic history— not even History 101 but remedial History 001. Let's say some years.

So the bottom line from my two or three degrees in U.S. history: Americans have lost the narrative thread. They came back from the kitchen and now they can't follow the movie. ("Who's that guy?") They haven't a clue what's going on. Sure, of course things are going badly in the Chinese Century, but the root problem is not so much that the ship of state is flying toward a mountain, but that it is flying blind.

So— when my nephew was not learning how to talk, the speech therapist— lovely, young, keenly anticipated— came over and did the dumbest thing. We thought she'd make him talk, but instead she had him blowing bubbles. Bubbles? Well, turns out that's excellent practice for controlling your breathing and muscles, plus feeling good for doing something besides failing to speak. Who knew— experts know stuff.

So let's say some years.

(Bell rings.) OK we'll pick up there next time.

Read these in the browser! Robert Wellman Campbell, "How to Say the Years: Blowing Bubbles," RSS Longa, 5 March 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

This month we're watching deepfake companies make fools of themselves. To be fair, this last one is pretty:

Click for full resolution

I posted this the day the Border Patrol's Gregory Bovino was fired. The pun is that this Minneapolis landmark is called the IDS. Later I wanted to clarify it to ADIOS ICE but I had reached Google's usage limit.

Look at this animation of drafts. Fascinating how everything shifts a little, like clouds in successive photos, and how the reflected clouds become lit-up windows.

As all teachers know, plagiarism is the ancient art of shmushing documents together. Apparently many deepfake programs can't not shmush, even when asked for plain reality. Because no, there's no six-lane megastreet under the IDS, and no mega-skyway covering the sidestreet like a double-decker bridge.

Even the earliest railroads connected you to real places. Three years in these are still connecting you to baloney.

Just as there's no basement at the Alamo— or is there? The generic brown towers are fantasy too. And get those— people?— out of the street! “Pee-wee's Big Adventure (9/10) Movie CLIP - The Alamo Tour (1985) HD,” YouTube. “Pee-Wee Herman Finds The Alamo Basement,” YouTube. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Deepfake Deepcake: Adios ICE," RSS Longa, 26 February 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.

This month we're mocking deepfakes. Today's is less funny and more strange. Don't look at me.

Click for full resolution

Somewhere I was saying that the greatest of all forestry words is surely buttsnap. (Buttsnap is when wind breaks trees near the ground.) Then, channeling Airplane! and laughing at the name, I idly wondered if anyone had used it.

Well, Google hooked it in a whole new direction. What on Earth? I searched around and watched the movie, and of course I found no connection. Apparently a strange case of sycophancy, the tendency of large language models to be yes-men.

Wow! Utter incompetence. These things will say anything.

Not a bad movie. I like the link for separating truth from fiction. All of this month’s examples happen to be from Google, and in chronological order: 2023-12-28, 2024-06-15, 2025-05-01. Not obvious progress. Shirley, Netflix, 2024. Airplane! Paramount Pictures, 1980, clip on YouTube. Robert Wellman Campbell, "Deepfake Deepcake: Shirley Buttsnap," RSS Longa, 19 February 2026, public domain via CC0 1.0.