I read the other day that it was the 20th Anniversary of Guster’s album, Keep It Together. It’s hard to believe but then, I did just have my 20th high school reunion, so that tracks. Sigh. This will always remind me of my sophomore year Winter Term trip to the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. My cabin checked out that CD player and then didn’t return it for the rest of the trip. The only thing was we only had one CD–this one.
I imagine listening to Keep It Together is how my mother feels listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours which someone in her dorm had and listened to on repeat. Although, Fleetwood Mac is much cooler than this Guster CD [insert the crying laughing emoji].
Well, I am thankful that I no longer am a member of a church where they might say the “Sparkle Creed“. And “I’m gonna laugh endlessly at their stupid “sparkle” god like Elijah laughed at the prophets of Baal.”
Moving on, I loved this by John Piper about his most influential teacher.
Today marks the 122nd birthday of the composer Richard Rodgers (1902-1979). With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century. I mean his songbook is beyond impressive. Rodgers was the first person to win all four of the top American entertainment awards in theater, film, recording, and television–an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). He also won a Pulitzer.
Born and raised in Queens, he attended Columbia University where he met collaborators Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. The rest is history. What a remarkable career! To celebrate, I suggest you choose one of his many great musicals to watch: Jumbo, On Your Toes, Pal Joey, Oklahoma, South Pacific, Carousel, The King and I, The Sound of Music…the list goes on and on.
Funnily enough the first song by Rodgers that came to my mind was this one with lyrics by Lorenz Hart sung by the wonderful Jimmy Durante. It brings tears to my eyes!
It is also the birthday of cartoonist George Booth (1926-2022), who has always been a favorite of mine. I think daughter #1 can probably relate to this:
And, hey, Mel Brooks was born on the exact same day as Booth in 1926. Like Booth, Brooks served in WWII as an 18-year old. He participated in the Battle of the Bulge. His battalion was responsible for clearing booby-trapped buildings and defusing land mines as the Allies advanced into Nazi Germany. Zut alors! When he returned to the U.S. following the war, he commenced his comedic career. So if you’re not in the mood for watching a broadway musical, you could choose one of Brooks’s many good movies, such as To Be or Not toBe (1983).
Not quite Lubitsch, but close.
Meanwhile this scrappy little guy is burning it up at soccer camp.
Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of my mother’s death.
As a child I was happiest sitting on her lap–only in this picture she has just taken my fingers out of my mouth to pose for a family portrait. Also my father has just yelled at my brother to quit horsing around and the moment is frought with emotion. Isn’t that always the way. Families.
We do the best we can.
It is good to remember that the fate of our children does not lie with us (nor the fate of our parents) but with Our Father in heaven.
We do the best we can.
I am grateful to have had my mother for 32 years.
Looking for something to read? Here’s a list of eight examples of “gentle parenting in classic literature”.
Did you have a good weekend? Mine was fairly quiet, the highlight being going to church with the wee twins at 8:30 a.m. so they could attend the children’s worship service and then going to daughter #1’s house for bagels afterwards.
Mr. Smith was living his best life, frolicking in the backyard with the twins…
…and everyone signed Lottie’s cast.
Meanwhile back in Maryland, Katiebelle started swimming lessons…
…and Idabelle watched the passing parade with vim and vigor.
I watched some PGA golf and read another D.E. Stevenson book. I went to an estate sale in a house that had once belonged to a family I went to church with growing up and whose daughters went to my school. It had since turned into Grey Gardens and was a wreck. Kind of Quite creepy. But daughter #1 got a book and her usual discount from Lamar.
I also watched Father Goose (1964), Cary Grant’s second-to-last movie. You remember–it’s about a guy during WWII who is forced to work as an airplane spotter on a remote Pacific island and then is saddled with a prim teacher and seven little girls to look after. It won an Oscar for best screenplay written directly for the screen.
It is nice to see Cary playing against type, scruffy and annoyed. I remember my mother took my little sister and me to see it when it was originally released, probably because she thought we would enjoy the little girl element and she got to see Cary Grant. I liked it then and I enjoyed it the other night. It is a good example of the kind of movie Hollywood was very good at making in the 1960s but cannot make now to save their lives.
Greetings and happy Friday to all! Yes, we’ve survived another week. I was mildly stressed because I had to drive my boss to a coal mine in Illinois for a tour this week. I was not brave enough to go underground so I was instead treated to a tour of the prep plant. Basically, this meant I got to go off-roading in a giant pick up and enjoy the fresh air found above ground. It was not an unpleasant day. This coming week, I am off to another coal mine in Indiana–and thankfully, this is a surface mine. Let’s just all pray for sunny skies and mild temperatures.
Sunday was a dreary day and I got to enjoy the afternoon in my new craft room working on a special project for a special girl and her little sister. The room is still a work in progress, but it is functioning. And it is wonderful to have such a large space to sew. I am trying to work in a slow and steady pace on this project so that I don’t end up rushing at the end.
I have tried several modern methods for transferring markings and finally decided I wanted to just use the old fashioned tracing paper. Lo and behold, I had a big stash because of my habit of buying old sewing baskets at estate sales. Seriously, they are the best. Also, the tracing paper worked perfectly and doesn’t go away with time or heat. Some things can’t be improved.
And finally, look at this sweet face.
Mr. Smith was feeling very sweet on Friday night–but has been a bit of a bad boy this week. Perhaps he knows he’s in for some unpleasantness next week. Yes, next Thursday, Mr. Smith is being “fixed”, as they say. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but he’ll have to wear a cone for at least a week. Oy.
Summer is here and it’s tiger lily season–they are blooming all over town.
I am looking forward to all the blooms to come.
In other news, as you know, I have been reading books written in the 1930s and 40s by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying them enormously.
I just finished “Miss Buncle’s Book” and loved it. Stevenson has a real talent for characterization and for subtly drawing a picture of a town and its inhabitants. In this novel the main character has written a book (using a pseudonym) about a fictional town that is strikingly similar to the one in which she really lives. It is so similar that some of the inhabitants are outraged and want to find out who the author is, so they can take him to court for libel. Of course, they never imagine that the quiet, mousey woman who is the actual author could have written the book.
If you have ever wondered when the actual date of your conversion was (as I have), Charles Spurgeon has a comforting illustration.
And this is J.I. Packer on the six things you should tell yourself everyday.
On Monday Lottie’s parents took her to the orthopedist to have her cast put on, so they dropped the wee laddie off at my house. We had so much fun together. We read Richard Scarry books, taking turns reading.
We went upstairs (usually off-limits) to search for more Richard Scarry books in his Dad’s old room. Then he asked if he could go in my room because that’s where the mini trampoline is as well as my practically-an-antique stationery bike.
He showed me how he could do jumping jacks on the trampoline (40!) and he did 20 push-ups on the floor, demonstrating what they learned in gym at school. I said I did not think I could do jumping jacks on the trampoline and he said, “That’s because you’re an old girl and my grandma.”
He jumped several times from the trampoline to the bed, landing on his knees, and I prayed, “Oh Lord, please don’t let him fall and break his arm!”
Then we watched YouTube videos of Matchbox cars and action figures. Fascinating!
After viewing these educational and thrilling videos, we ate lunch. I suggested a toasted cheese sandwich, but he said he preferred Easy Mac. Luckily I had some, which we made together. I had a tuna sandwich. He asked me if I like tuna, which is a fish. I said, yes, I do. We said grace and chatted about Vacation Bible School, which he admitted to enjoying, especially when the boys beat the girls at games.
After lunch he asked to get the old Legos out and we got two bins which are kept in the Florida room, discovering that the room had flooded during the torrential rains of the day before. Pappy was in the yard with the man who was turning on the sprinklers. He grumbled and went back to the basement where he had been hiding all morning.
We were playing with the Legos, looking for heads to put on all the headless men, when his parents arrived, all in a rush to go say goodbye to her sister who was leaving to go back to Texas. I heard the laddie say to his Dad as they crossed the lawn that he didn’t want to leave, “that he could stay here forever.”
I didn’t get any of the things done which I had planned to do that day, but who cares. I think I won an Oscar for Best Mamu.
People were outraged at their ignorance, but I was not that surprised. People these days know nothing. Even Jeopardy contestants who probably have an inflated idea of their own intelligence. Anne wrote about it. She says that those contestants didn’t know it because no one taught it to them. She’s right, but I would contend that it used to be that everyone knew the words to the Lord’s Prayer. Not just people who went to Sunday School and had parents who said it with them at bedtime. I have attended many a funeral and the Jewish person sitting next to me knew the words to the Lord’s Prayer, maybe because they attended a college where they had to go to daily chapel and a little something rubbed off. Back in the day there was even a joke about “Our Father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name…”
Now nobody knows anything. When I was growing up people had a general knowledge of history and a curiosity about how things worked. You know, they knew that Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor and that Benedict Arnold was a traitor. They knew that Jesus was born in the year 1 (Anno Domine) and that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. You can’t assume that people know those things anymore.
Well, insert a big shrug emoji here. There’s not much I can do about this except make sure that my grandchildren are burdened with all kinds of “trivial” knowledge. Onward and upward.
What is Pride? “Pride is arrogance. Pride thinks it knows better and is better. Pride sets itself in first place. It bows to no one but itself. But, as C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, ‘Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.'”
I love my books (and DVDs)–you’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.
“Only if your god can outrage and challenge you will you know that you worship the real God and not a figment of your imagination…If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.”
–Tim Keller
And I kind of love this hat one of the Catholic protesters wore before that Giants game…
Well, VBS was a timely reminder that it is a good thing to get out of one’s comfort zone every now and then.
And I have to say, being with all those smart kids kind of restores my confidence in the future somewhat. For example, I had a really engaging conversation with one of the boys in my group about his first name. I asked him if was Welsh and he said Gaelic. This led him to ask if I had ever heard of Tombstone, because he is a descendant of the McLaurys and I was able to jump in and say, why yes, they were participants in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. (I had, of course, already been wondering about his name.) He said ‘they’ (his family) hated the movie Tombstone because of the way the McLaurys are depicted. He admitted that the McLaurys were the bad guys, but argued that the movie was not fair. I said he should tell his father to get the movie My Darling Clementine, which is an old movie made in 1946 starring Henry Fonda and is a much better telling of the story. He nodded, and being an intelligent lad, I am hopeful he will pass this information on to his father.
He went on to tell me that his father is a pastor at a downtown church. Then the boy next to him chimed in and said he also went to this church where his mother is the Music Director. We had a good conversation about animals we have seen in our yards. They were impressed that I had seen a coyote.
Anyway, I was glad to meet a boy who is interested in his genealogy and who can talk about it intelligently.
It was also a joy to see my grandchildren in the thick of things and to get hugs throughout the morning when we met in passing. They did great and I think they had a lot of fun.
Can you see them in the front? It did my heart good to hear those babes singing “It Is Well With My Soul”!
I had hoped to see them in church on Sunday singing with the rest of the kids at the beginning of the service, but Lottie broke her arm on Saturday at a pool party. She spent the afternoon in the E.R. We FaceTimed later that evening and she told me, “I’m okay, Mamu!’
She goes back to get a cast (purple with pink sparkles bien sûr) next week.
And lest we forget: we wish a belated happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful fathers out there!
dual personalities 