dual personalities

Month: January, 2025

January 17, 2025

Living proof

by chuckofish

Today is precious Ida B’s birthday! She is two! I wish I could include adorable pics in this post, but, as you know, I am over my limit. Daughter #1 and I are working on getting a new blog going, and hopefully we’ll have something next week.

My thoughtful cousin Steve just sent me the program from my Aunt Donna‘s memorial service (July 16), which I really appreciated. The service was held in her church in Andover, where she had been an active member for a very long time. Over those 60+ years I have no doubt it changed a lot, but she stuck with it until she moved up to New Hampshire. They sang all the old hymns at the service–“In the Garden”, “How Great Thou Art”, “The Old Rugged Cross”. They read the 23rd Psalm, plus Isaiah 57, Ecclesiastes 3, 1 Corinthians 13, and “selections” from John 14. The Isaiah was an interesting choice.

The picture of Donna on the front of the program really stopped me, because I thought, wow, I am aging exactly the same way–the hair, the eyes, the nose and skin. Our genes, our DNA, the same. And I have to say, looking at little Ida B., I see her sweet mother and myself and Aunt Donna. Beautiful, how that works.

The boy tells me that David Lynch has died and also ol’ Bob Uecker. We will miss them both.

It’s Friday once again. Have a good one!

Oh Darlin, pardon me
but do I look familiar
when we were just flying free
and we burned from a freight train
and we were some flicker of truth in the smile of a salesman
and we were all buried jewels ‘neath the grass in the suburbs
and we were all living proof
oh Darlin, pardon me

–Gregory Alan Isakov

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January 16, 2025

“Since the Puritans got a shock/ When they landed on Plymouth Rock”*

by chuckofish

Today we toast the Broadway star Ethel Merman on her birthday (1908-84). I bet you didn’t know that she was a lifelong Episcopalian (Her funeral was held in a chapel at St. Bartholomew’s in NYC)–which is hilarious (or perhaps not) since she was notorious for her brash demeanor and for telling vulgar stories in public. She was truly a force of nature and very famous in her time, indeed a cultural icon. I’m sure no one under the age of 60 today even knows who she is. Que sera, sera.

It is also the birthday of the English poet Robert Service, about whom I have blogged before. As you toast him, you might read one of his poems or watch The Spoilers (1942) in which he shared a brief scene with Marlene Dietrich. (Service appeared unbilled as a Yukon poet patterned after Service himself.) The Spoilers, which takes place in Alaska, is a good choice for a cold January night.

On a more serious note, this is a good article by Jen Wilkin about the chiastic pattern of life she discovered at her mother’s deathbed. “Remembering that seasons of life follow a patterned order helps us inhabit the season we are in and prioritize how to use the time we are given. Since death announced its presence in Genesis 3, our days have been numbered. Perhaps God, in his infinite kindness, gave us a chiasm, a patterned measuring rod, to number those days rightly.” (A chiasmus is a literary device in which ideas are presented and then subsequently repeated or inverted in a symmetrical mirror-like structure.  A modern example of a short chiasm would be If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. “Jesus makes a pithy chiastic statement in Mark 2:27: ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.'”)

This is one of several articles I have read about the inappropriateness of singing ‘Imagine’–“a strange and indeed hopeless song for any funeral, let alone one that is meant to be Christian in nature”–at Jimmy Carter’s funeral. “John Lennon’s song collapses in on its own irrationality. He imagines ‘living life in peace’, and there being no “greed or hunger”, but such talk demands a form and purpose, but atheism and naturalism cannot provide such a definition.” Indeed.

Have a good day. Sing a song loudly and brazenly, read a poem, watch an old movie, think about the arc of your life, thank God for his mercies which are new every morning.

*A line from “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter; Ethel Merman starred in the original Broadway production in 1934.

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January 15, 2025

Blue skies

by chuckofish

We are experiencing blue skies (and freezing temps) here in flyover country and the best part for me is that the sun on the snow is the perfect natural light by which to needlepoint. I sit by my large living room window and sew–easily discerning the changing colors in the intricate pattern–and listen to Sinclair Ferguson expound on scripture. What could be nicer?

Well, it’s a good way to spend an hour in between chores.

Why make so much of fragmentary blue

In here and there a bird, or butterfly,

Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,

When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

Though some savants make earth include the sky;

And blue so far above us comes so high,

It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

–Robert Frost

Lottie is back in her dancing class routine so the boy and the wee bud were back at my house yesterday afternoon. The boy manhandled the trash bin over the ice mound left by the snow plow so I can take it down the driveway for pickup tomorrow. Much appreciated. It’s the little things, right?

And, hey, did you hear that band members of the music group Village People announced on Monday that they have accepted an invitation from President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign to be part of the Inauguration activities? Well, they did. You will recall that Village People founding member Victor Willis gave permission for President-elect Trump to use the band’s classic hit “Y.M.C.A.” at his rallies during his campaign because of its “bringing so much joy to the American people”. (The song charted again and went to #1 and stayed there for some time. The videos went viral.)

3 Comments
January 14, 2025

“Grandpapa is an old basoon”

by chuckofish

Today we toast Sterling Holloway (1905-92) on his birthday. If you grew up like me in the 1960s, you surely would recognize his voice, if not his name. He was a Disney legend from the good ol’ days. He was in Bambi and Dumbo and The Three Caballeros and Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book and, most famously, in Winnie the Pooh features through 1977.

Holloway was more than a voice though, and he made a lot of movies. He was Gene Autry’s comic sidekick in five movies. He played the role of a medic assigned to an infantry platoon in the critically acclaimed film A Walk in the Sun (1945). And he appeared in over 40 TV shows–who can forget him as Bert, the non-pushy salesman, on the Andy Griffith Show?

He was the narrator on the Disney adaption of Prokofieff’s “Peter and the Wolf” which I listened to many, many times in my childhood.

I just loved him (and his voice).

Enjoy these videos–I sure did!

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January 13, 2025

Monday, Monday

by chuckofish

There was more snow on Friday than I anticipated, so no Friday happy hour, but we caught up on Saturday. Everybody was out and about. Daughter #1 and I went to our local antique mall after Mr. Smith had his shampoo, and it was hopping! Then we went to the Presbyterian re-sale shop where we stocked up on $1.50 dvd’s. I found Here Comes the Boom (2012) and embarrassed her by saying loudly, “Here comes the boom!” Sorry. Good to know I can still embarrass my non-teenage daughter in a public setting.

It was great to be back in church on Sunday after a few weeks away. We had a good sermon and an excellent adult ed class on the life and times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Francis Schaeffer was a leading 20th century Christian scholar and the author of How Should We Then Live?, but one with whom I was not acquainted before I became a Presbyterian. He was once actually the pastor of my church back in the 1940s. I have a lot to learn.

After church the fam came over to our house and we celebrated daughter #3’s belated birthday. We had tacos and the OM did all the cooking. Plus there was birthday cake and daughter #1 brough macaroons. I had not seen the twins since Christmas Eve and they seemed older and more mature. Funny how that works.

Now we are starting a new week and hopefully we will all get back on track after a week of working at home and snow days.

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly.
leaving nothing out.

–Wendell Berry

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January 10, 2025

The world is more than we know

by chuckofish

Well, I finally ventured out into the world in my car to the grocery store! All went well. More snow today, though–fingers crossed for Friday happy hour!

Meanwhile, with Anne, “I am utterly astonished by the devastation from the fires [in California]. The best word to describe it is ‘dystopian hellscape.’ …Then to see the clips of interviews with the Mayor and the Chief of Police, and the footage of the LA Fire Department in a Pride Parade, and then to see the staggering news that the Mayor had cut the fire department budget by millions of dollars—the list of terrible revelations just goes on and on. But mostly the thing that sticks in the mind is the great wall of fire devouring everything. Some people—and I think it’s appropriate—have flung around the phrase ‘biblical proportions’.” …I mean, the level of governmental incompetence leading up to this disaster is mind-blowing.

As one pundit said, “In a very real sense, California in 2025 is the wilderness again, with nature and mankind returning to their feral states”, as assembled in this recent Babylon Bee video:

Anyway, our prayers are with the poor souls in California.

And this is interesting–about another surprise from Joe Rogan. You don’t have to watch the whole 3-hour interview with Christian apologist Wesley Huff, but check out the short 4-minute clip which will give you an idea of what went on in the conversation. As Denny Burk says, “It is so encouraging to hear the gospel so faithfully presented and defended. It’s also encouraging to encounter such a presentation on a program that reaches millions of people across the world. Let’s pray for the word to bear fruit.”

And here’s a poem by America’s first published poet, the Puritan Anne Bradstreet. “Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our house, July 10th. 1666. Copied Out of a Loose Paper.“

Have a good weekend! Thank God for a warm, dry, safe home!

4 Comments
January 9, 2025

The snow levels all things

by chuckofish

Well, the sun came out yesterday and we enjoyed blue skies. Unfortunately the temperature peaked in the mid-twenties and nothing melted. Our driveway did get plowed on Tuesday night so we were free to leave, but I was not moved to do so.

I read Thoreau’s A Winter Walk.

But now, while we have loitered, the clouds have gathered again, and a few straggling snow-flakes are beginning to descend. Faster and faster they fall, shutting out the distant objects from sight. The snow falls on every wood and field, and no crevice is forgotten; by the river and the pond, on the hill and in the valley. Quadrupeds are confined to their coverts, and the birds sit upon their perches this peaceful hour. There is not so much sound as in fair weather, but silently and gradually every slope, and the gray walls and fences, and the polished ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and beasts are lost. With so little effort does nature reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. Hear how Homer has described the same. “The snow-flakes fall thick and fast on a winter’s day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls incessant, covering the tops of the mountains, and the hills, and the plains where the lotus-tree grows, and the cultivated fields, and they are falling by the inlets and shores of the foaming sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves.” The snow levels all things, and infolds them deeper in the bosom of nature, as, in the slow summer, vegetation creeps up to the entablature of the temple, and the turrets of the castle, and helps her to prevail over art.

Inspired by HDT, I donned my winter wear and sallied forth to walk around my yard. Not a whole lot going on. Saw some rabbit tracks. I came back in and then struggled mightily to get my Hunter boots off. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skilful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us. We enjoy now, not an oriental, but a boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams.

3 Comments
January 8, 2025

[The] hardship of the January freeze*

by chuckofish

Another day of staying home with not much going on. I am grateful for my nice, snug house and a furnace that is fully functional. We all remember what it was like back in 2006 when the electricity was out for three days and we had no heat. No fun. In fact, really terrible.

I am not being overly productive, but I am getting odds ‘n ends taken care of and the Kirkwood Historical Review ready to send to the printer. And I am reading, actual books! I got several new ones for Christmas…Print the Legend: the Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman (from my brother) and Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds (from my sister). The latter was a huge bestseller back in 1936, staying on the bestseller list for two years. The Bantam Books edition went through no less than 48 printings between July 1936 and August 1956; the novel is still in print after eight decades.

Daughter #1 gave me the TCM film guide to the 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era, wherein I found the nugget of information that Judy Garland was 4’11”–no wonder she was perfect with Mickey Rooney! Well, you learn something new every day.

I also bought the The New and Collected Poems of Richard Wilbur at an estate sale last weekend and so I have been dipping into it. Here’s one* of his poems to read.

And don’t forget to toast Elvis Presley today on what would have been his 90th birthday.

So as long as the holiday treats and the wine hold out, I’ll be fine.

4 Comments
January 7, 2025

When it got cold

by chuckofish

Well, we are firmly encased under a blanket of snow. And it is quiet–so quiet–in my neighborhood. No cars, practically no one walking by. No leaf blowers. Very nice.

I suppose I should bundle up and go outside, “But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,  a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.”   (I really like this poem by Billy Collins about snow.)

And here’s an old song which uses the phrase “We bundled up”.

Our driveway is going to be plowed on Wednesday, so until then, we are stuck at home. I can dig it. Hang in there and I will too.

3 Comments
January 6, 2025

 Faith holds wide the door*

by chuckofish

Well, we were warned about the blizzard conditions that were coming all last week and so were prepared to be home for several days. In fact, I did not leave the house all weekend, but stayed holed up in my cozy domicile. I had plenty of wine and nibblies, so I was not overly concerned. We were lucky and largely dodged the bullet, unlike Kansas City where conditions were pretty dicey. But we did experience “thunder snow” which sent our weatherpeople into paroxysms of delight. Flyover weather–par for the course.

Church was cancelled and so I watched (on YouTube) the service from last week when we were in Mahomet. It was interesting to watch from the virtual balcony and good to see all those familiar communicants. They sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem” which was nice to hear, since we had not sung it earlier during the Christmas season. The lyrics* by Phillips Brooks are so good.

I took down all the Christmas decorations (and two trees) which is quite a job and takes hours and hours. Daughter #1 came over on Friday and helped me, but it is a multiple-day event. I’m sure I will continue to find Xmas items that have escaped my attention for weeks to come.

Today is Epiphany, so don’t forget to watch 3 Godfathers (1948). I watched it over the weekend and it is just a great, great movie. You will recall that it is a loose retelling of the biblical Three Wise Men story in an American Western context, starring John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey, Jr. It is also the birthday of our lovely daughter-in-law (daughter #3). We will celebrate as soon as the roads are cleared and we can synchronize our calendars!

Here’s Sinclair Ferguson’s resolution for the Christian life. “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

It is very frustrating not to be able to include photos on my blog and daughter #1 and I are working on figuring out what to do. I probably will be starting a new blog, perhaps on Substack, very soon, so keep checking in and I’ll let you know.

3 Comments