Walls of ivy

by chuckofish

As winter approaches and we bring out all the cold weather gear, I thought I’d insert a few pics from the Middlebury College 1946 Winter Carnival booklet I unearthed while cleaning out a drawer in the highboy.

Here are the chairmen of the carnival committees…Our mother is in the front row, second from the left.

Here is the Middlebury women’s ski team–our mother is the third from the left.

And here is an attempt at college humor…Our mother is the gal in the front.

She had that fur-lined coat for years afterward. I remember it well. I still have her ski parka with the Pico Peak lift ticket attached and her wooden skiis, which she hauled to Arizona, California, and finally St. Louis after she was married, although she never skiied again. Of course, I cannot bear to get rid of them.

I have the poster from the Winter Carnival, which she designed, hanging on the wall of our den.

Although her time in college wasn’t perfect, she was happy there like nowhere else. I suppose that’s why I keep all this stuff–I like to think of her happy like that.

RIP to Senator Bob Dole, a gallant soldier and a Christian gentleman. Into paradise may the angels lead thee and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.

And let us not forget that today is the 80th (the eightieth) anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor! You can watch/rent John Ford’s December 7th documentary (Best Documentary Oscar, 1944) here.

O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard and hushed their raging at Thy word

tho walked’st on the foaming deep

And calm amidst its rage didst sleep.

Oh hear us when we cry to Thee for those in peril on the sea

–William Whiting