May | 2016 | dual personalities

May 17, 2016

“They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines.”*

by chuckofish

Sometimes the Apartment Therapy blog drives me crazy with their You Need to Do This and Right Now posts, but this and this were right on I thought.

I have been re-using my candle jars–the pretty ones at least–for quite some time.

And in my humble opinion there is nothing so special that you should save it, except maybe that one bottle of Dom Perignon that is waiting for some special announcement down the road.

When you go to as many estate sales as I do, you know how ridiculous it is to save the good linens, starched, tied with a ribbon and still in the original box, for a special occasion. Basically, you are saving them so your children can sell them at an estate sale!

The same goes for your china and all those things you received as wedding presents. Use them! Enjoy them! Everything tastes better on Wedgwood! If you break a plate every once in awhile, so what? C’est la vie.

As Emerson said, “Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.” It might be those pillow cases you finally sleep on!

*Calvin and Hobbes

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May 16, 2016

“O Lord, how manifold are your works!” *

by chuckofish

Happy Pentecost! How was your weekend?

We went to the last lacrosse game of the season on Friday after work and enjoyed sitting outside on a beautiful day, watching the game and the people around us. We never talked to the boy but the OM took a few pictures of him across the field with his giant lens.

On Saturday I went to several estate sales, including one in the lovely home of the brother of a former president of the U.S. His wife died a few months ago and I suppose he is down-sizing–you know, the kids took what they wanted and they were getting rid of the rest. The house was lovely and unpretentious, full of familiar things (books and LPs and monogrammed towels) and comfortable in an old school, slightly shabby way–just my style. They even had one of these–our family totem:

(I didn’t buy his, because I have already given one to each of my children.) I did buy an old child’s chair, which had been chewed by a family dog, and a BCP.

A good morning’s outing to be sure.

I finished Nightwoods by Charles Frazier and I highly recommend it. Good characters, tightly paced–well done. I am now reading Hope Leslie written by Catharine Maria Sedgwick in 1827, encouraged by daughter #2 who has read all of Sedgwick’s oeuvre for her dissertation. I am pleasantly surprised to report that Sedgwick is a regular Jane Austen, writing with a wry humor about “early times in Massachusetts.” Indeed the action takes place in the early seventeenth century and explores the “tumultuous relations between Puritans and Pequots.” I love this scene, described in a letter, where the fourteen-year old son pokes fun at an Anglican newcomer during a storm:

But Dame Grafton was beside herself. At one moment she fancied we should be the prey of the wild beast, and at the next, that she heard the alarm yell of the savages. Everell brought her, her prayer-book, and affecting a well-beseeming gravity, he begged her to look out the prayer for distressed women, in imminent danger of being scalped by North American Indians. The poor lady, distracted with terror, seized the book, and turned over leaf after leaf. Everell meanwhile affecting to aid her search. In vain I shook my head, reprovingly, at the boy–in vain I assured Mistress Grafton that I trusted we were in no danger; she was beyond the influence of reason; nothing allayed her fears, till chancing to catch a glance of Everell’s eye, she detected the lurking laughter, and rapping him soundly over the ears with her book, she left the room greatly enraged.

Now that is funny. “The prayer for distressed women, in imminent danger of being scalped by North American Indians.” I already like this Catherine Maria Sedgwick a lot.

The rest of the weekend was spent pleasantly puttering around, working in the yard, eating the donuts that my friend from Atlanta brought to me at work on Friday (he was in town for the air show)–note they are the “right” donuts–

and going to a garden party in support of the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.

It was held at our friend’s 1867 house high up overlooking the mighty Mississippi…

There was even a bassett hunt.

Not bad for a stay-at-home introvert!

*Psalm 104

4 Comments

May 14, 2016

Thought for the day

by chuckofish

I’ve been too deep in history this last week…I’ve been seeing too many remains of past glories; I can’t even look at a row of overpowering columns in a ruined temple without thinking of the men who built them and walked there. And of their great-great and not so great grandsons who let them be destroyed. Let them be destroyed? What else, when you counted the years of acquiescence and drift before the actual destruction began? yes, you looked at the temples, at the nobility of man’s taste, and you remembered the art and the law and the philosophy and the knowledge that had gone with them; and then you thought, unhappily, angrily, why did those men let all that pass out of their hands into alien control? They had something worth keeping and they let it slip away. At what point could they have saved it? The point just before they started to be afraid of dying? Better barbarians than death — had that been their comfort? And the beginning of their end? (Helen MacInnes, The Double Image, 1965)

Discuss among yourselves and have a great weekend.

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May 13, 2016

Weekend plans

by chuckofish

We have had a rainy, stormy week, but the forecast for the weekend is good. I plan to take it easy and prepare for next weekend when I am going to my niece’s wedding in Pennsylvania.

“I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.”

–J.D. Salinger, A Boy in France: Saturday Evening Post CCXVII, March 31, 1945

Sounds like a plan to me.

(The painting is by Thomas Hart Benton)

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May 12, 2016

Throwback Thursday

by chuckofish

My dual personality and her best friend Lars were huge fans of the St. Louis Blues hockey team back in the 1970s. I was never a big ice hockey fan, but I seem to remember them really liking Garry Unger and his flowing blond locks in particular.

While I was perusing the internet for the above pic of Garry, I was reminded of these great guys of yore…remember Red Berenson?

Barclay Plager?

Noel Picard?

There’s nothing like a skate down memory lane, right?

Meanwhile the current Blues are headed to the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2001.

So how can we not say:

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May 11, 2016

Mid-week meditation

by chuckofish

“[All the ancient wisdom] tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis – only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy.”

–Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays, “The Unsettling of America”

The wood engraving is by Clare Leighton – Scything, 1935

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May 10, 2016

“Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the 153rd anniversary of the death of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (age 39) following the Battle of Chancellorsville, when he was shot by friendly fire on the moonlit night of May 2, 1863.

“Chancellorsville” portrait, taken at a Spotsylvania County farm on April 26, 1863, seven days before he was wounded. What a face!

Here he is younger and beardless. Pretty dreamy.

I have always admired Stonewall Jackson as an exemplar of the Scotch-Irish Protestants who came to this country in the eighteenth century, many of them as indentured servants, and worked and fought hard to make a home here. In fact his paternal great-grandparents (John Jackson and Elizabeth Cummins) met on the prison ship from London and fell in love. They married six years later when they gained their freedom.

The family migrated west across the Blue Ridge Mountains to settle near Moorefield, Virginia in 1758. In 1770, they moved farther west to the Tygart Valley. They began to acquire large parcels of virgin farming land near the present-day town of Buckhannon, including 3,000 acres in Elizabeth’s name. John and his two teenage sons fought in the Revolutionary War; John finished the war as a captain. While the men were in the army, Elizabeth converted their home to a haven for refugees from Indian attacks known as “Jackson’s Fort.”

Yes, the Jacksons were awesome.

Furthermore, Stonewall was a profoundly religious man and a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. One of his many nicknames was “Old Blue Lights,” a term applied to a military man whose evangelical zeal burned with the intensity of the blue light used for night-time display. He disliked fighting on Sunday, although that did not stop him from doing so after much personal debate.

Here is a poem by Herman Melville that pretty well sums up my feelings about the great Stonewall:

Mortally Wounded at Chancellorsville

The Man who fiercest charged in fight,
Whose sword and prayer were long –
Stonewall!
Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong,
How can we praise? Yet coming days
Shall not forget him with this song.

Dead is the Man whose Cause is dead,
Vainly he died and set his seal –
Stonewall!
Earnest in error, as we feel;
True to the thing he deemed was due,
True as John Brown or steel.

Relentlessly he routed us;
But we relent, for he is low –
Stonewall!
Justly his fame we outlaw; so
We drop a tear on the bold Virginian’s bier,
Because no wreath we owe.

Monument Avenue in Richmond, VA

*Stonewall Jackson’s dying words–beautiful!

3 Comments

May 9, 2016

Dearest Mother dearest

by chuckofish

So the OM asked me on Saturday if I wanted a fancy coffee cake or what on Mother’s Day and I said what I really would like is a donut. So he said he would go to Dunkin’ Donuts on Sunday morning. What kind of donut did I want? I said I would like a plain cake donut or a cake donut with chocolate frosting.

So on Sunday morning he duly left the house at 7 a.m. to go to Dunkin’ Donuts. He came back with half a dozen donuts: 2 blueberry, 2 glazed and 2 chocolate cake donuts with frosting.

What? When I questioned him about his selection, he said, “Well, that’s what they had.”

Sigh.

Anyway, I went to church where we were celebrating our confirmation class kids who were confirmed two weeks ago down at the Cathedral. It was a nice service and afterwards there was a reception and cake. I gave my mentee one of my favorite Frederick Buechner books and to my surprise, she gave me a present:

A birdhouse that looks like a church! I was very touched. I’m sure Brigid and I will be lifelong friends.

The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner. We bar-b-qued turkey burgers and drank leftover beer from my birthday party.

Good times and a happy Mother’s Day.

(The painting is by Wassily Kandinsky, 1909)

3 Comments

May 7, 2016

News from across the pond

by chuckofish

We’re excitedly anticipating the return of Tim, son #3 soon (got the date wrong in original post). He has been in Edinburgh for the past semester, studying music and connecting to his Scottish roots.

This last week he attended the Cordiners’ meeting in Glasgow with his step-grandmother (and newly-minted Ph.D.!), Beverly. Following family tradition from way back, my DH and all three boys are members of the organization, which you can read about here. However, Tim is the first of this generation actually to attend a meeting. I gather he had a wonderful time and they seemed to like him. According to their website:

A highlight of the evening was the presence, and skilled performance on the piano, of Tim Melville, a visiting music student from New York State, who is a Fifth Generation Cordiner and who found himself installed as Trades Goudie for the evening, opening the Box along with Deacon’s Goudie, Dr. Natalie Pierotti.

The job of the Goudies is to open the Cordiners’ double-lock strongbox. As the website explains it, “The chests originally held the documents and money which belonged to the Incorporations. At least two keys were required to unlock the boxes, to ensure that the contents could not be stolen.” Nowadays, the opening is ceremonial:

Now, if he can just figure out how to pack all his belongings into a single suitcase, his guitar case (including the instrument), and a back-pack, he’ll be all set for the trip home.

Can’t wait to see him!! That’ll be a grand mother’s day present, indeed.

A Happy Mothers Day to all of you!

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May 6, 2016

“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants.”

by chuckofish

Today we note again the anniversary of the death of Henry David Thoreau in 1862.

Let us not forget these wise words:

The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

—Slavery in Massachusetts

Hear, hear!

Have a good weekend. Happy Mother’s Day!

4 Comments

Month: May, 2016

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