dual personalities

I know it’s Saturday because it’s my turn to post something. This week was just like last week and the week before that, and they have all blurred together. At some point, as I puttered around, I found this priceless photo in a box of stuff.

What song do you imagine they are playing along to? Why the hats? And, yes, toy weapons do make great air guitars.

In other discovery news, I found this story by our grandfather in a book titled The Best News Stories of 1923. I had to capture it using the snipping tool, hence the three differently sized sections.

Aside from this human interest story, the book included a much longer, more serious selection dealing with rum-running in New York. Here’s the beginning:

If you’re interested, you can read the rest via Google Books.  Our poor grandmother did not bargain on our adventure-seeking grandfather. I imagine that when they got married in 1917 she thought he was an upright, patriotic citizen going off to fight in WWI (which, of course, he was). She expected that after the war he would come home and start practicing law, and that they would become pillars of whatever community they graced. It was not to be. The war killed his brother, but it also introduced Arthur to all sorts of stimulating people and experiences. He flew planes; he rubbed shoulders with movers and shakers different from the staid businessmen of his youth in Burlington. He liked the fast pace of big city journalism. Mira played along for a decade or more, but eventually it got to her and they separated. Arthur went to the west coast, and she and my father went home to Massachusetts. And that, as they say, was that.

When I wasn’t searching through my family’s past, I finished re-reading Wolf Hall, every page of which seems to reward the reader with some insight, beautifully expressed.

But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man’s power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the un-guessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies and desires (p. 331).

This passage particularly resonated:

You can have a silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, hold a concord. A shriveled petal can hold its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts (p. 597).

I am looking forward to re-reading Bring up the Bodies before I start the last book in the series, though it will be difficult to read about Thomas Cromwell’s demise.

In the meantime, life continues apace. Tim and Abbie are arriving for a visit later today. The weather is beautiful and warm (in the 80s) and everything is blooming, but we promise not to go anywhere, do anything or have fun. It’s not allowed here in New York, because we are just starting our phased reopening. Here are the rules:

Have a grand weekend, wherever you are and whatever your circumstances!