dual personalities

Category: Books

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

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The wee laddie likes to be read to, but he also likes to turn the page (mostly likes to turn the page) and so it is not easy to read a book to him fast enough. We will persevere. Lottie likes to be read to also. If they are playing on the floor and I start reading aloud, they will stop what they are doing and come over and climb up on the sofa and listen. Not for too long, if I don’t turn the pages fast enough, but for a little while. This is a good thing.

I was talking to one of my students the other day, one who graduated from our alma mater 10 years ahead of me (and so is in her 70s). We were talking about her parents who are both 96 and about to celebrate their 75 wedding anniversary! I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but she was telling me about how her father was a great one for reading to his three children when they were growing up. He read to them until they were practically teenagers and always in the dialect/accent of the character. They all loved it. He is still reading aloud, all these years later, in our Shakespeare class. She admitted that he practices at home. I can hear him sometimes through the wall of my office and it warms my heart.

The only time I read aloud these days (except occasionally to the wee babes) is in church. This past Sunday, because it was the long holiday weekend I suppose, attendance was spotty. In fact, one of the assigned lay readers did not show up! So after a pregnant pause in the service, I jumped up and headed to the lectern to read, unrehearsed, from the letter of Paul to the Romans:

 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness  with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (8: 12-17)

How I do love old St. Paul and all his commas! I did all right and 90-year old Shirley told me after the service that I had made a good catch.

Never stop reading!

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

Sometimes it seems I have nothing to read and sometimes I have piles of books demanding my attention. Feast or famine, you know? Right now I am in feast mode, having an abundance of reading material at my disposal. My DP gave me two Alan Furst novels for my birthday last month. I am currently reading The Polish Officer.

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While ploughing through that pile of 1940s New Yorker magazines, I became acquainted with Hamilton Basso, who was an associate editor there for twenty years. He also wrote 11 novels, The View From Pompey’s Head being the most well-known. It spent 40 weeks on The New York Times Bestseller List when it was published in 1954. I think they made it into a movie. Anyway, I bought a used copy online and am reading it now and enjoying it.

I also have books that have been given to me by people at work…

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…and books that I pick up at estate sales. I went to the used book sale last Saturday at Ladue Chapel, a prominent Presbyterian church in town, where I expected to find many treasures. However, I was disappointed with their selection. I did get a few things, including Nothing Daunted, the true story of two privileged Smith College grads who head west in 1911 and have their minds expanded by their experience teaching in a small Colorado school. I had been meaning to read it, so was happy to get a copy for 50 cents.

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Well, I have stacks of books to read, but no time to read them. In the evening I am just too tired. Quelle conundrum. I mean really.

It is also alarming to note that the year is speeding by with alarming alacrity! Classes will be ending soon! Zut alors!

Speaking of calendars, I loved this:

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Speaking of cartoonist, this about George Booth was interesting.

So what are you reading?

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

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“Part of the forces that sent Sam trudging across the white prairies was love of life, a gladness for health and youth that filled him as Mozart’s gayest music filled him; and part of it was his belief that the earth on which he walked had been designed by the greatest of artists, and that if a man had the courage and fortitude not to fail it, it would not fail him. In Sam’s rough mountain-man philosophy those persons who became the wards of sadness and melancholy had never summoned for use and trial more than a part of what they had in them, and so had failed themselves and their Creator. If it was a part of the inscrutable plan that he was to live through this ordeal, and again cover the bones of wife and child with mountain lilies, the strength was lying in him, waiting, and he had only to call on it- all of it- and use it, without flinching or whimpering. If he showed himself to be a worthy piece in the Great Architect’s edifice he would live; in Sam’s philosophy that was about all there was to it.”

–Vardis Fisher, Mountain Man

While reading through my pile of 1940s New Yorker magazines, I read a review of a novel by Vardis Fisher. This reminded me of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972) which is based on another Vardis Fisher novel, Mountain Man, which I had always meant to read. So I checked out Mountain Man (published in 1965) from my flyover university and have been reading it.

The story follows the life of Sam Minard (and various other fur-trappers) and his relations with the Crow and Blackfoot tribes in and around 1846. Two of the three central characters were suggested by actual people: Kate Bowden (i.e. Jane Morgan) who went crazy after killing with an ax the four Indians who had slaughtered her family on the Musselshell: secondly, Samson Minard (i.e. John Johnston- the “Crow-killer”). It is an action-packed tale, full of detail and interesting facts about the Wyoming-Montana-Idaho territory. Our mountain man hero is apt to wax eloquent on many subjects, such as which animal mothers will fight to the death to protect their children (wolf, wolverine,  bobcat, badger, bear, grouse, avocet, horned lark) and which will not (buffalo, elk). Sam is also quite a spiritual being:

Reading nature, for Sam, was like reading the Bible; in both, the will of the Creator was plain.

He is educated, well read and likes to sing. What’s not to like?

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It should be noted that the book has very little in common with the movie, however, and they must be enjoyed separately. I have no idea why the screenwriter strayed so far from the book, but he did. I guess they felt the need to lighten up on the Indians and make them more palatable to the movie-going audience. Whatever.

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Our great-great grandfather, John Simpson Hough, was a good friend of “Uncle Dick” Wooten

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Richens Lacey Wooten

and Kit Carson,

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who are both referred to in the book. Although no mountain man himself, John Hough was a great admirer of the breed. Family legend says that Kit Carson died in the Hough’s house in Boggsville (and not in Fort Lyon per Wikipedia). At least one of his daughters (Terasina) lived with and was raised by the Houghs for several years. When he knew Dick and Kit, they were both old men, and I’m sure John Hough enjoyed listening to their tales of the early days. In that, I am like him.

What are you reading?

“Time is so strange and life is twice as strange.”*

by chuckofish

This past weekend I read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Written in 1957, the novel takes place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois, based on Bradbury’s childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois.  The main character of the story is Douglas Spaulding, a 12-year-old boy loosely patterned after Bradbury. I found it diverting and worth reading.

Of course, it sparked my curiosity about Waukegan. Waukegan is kind of a depressing place these days, but back in the days when Bradbury was a boy, it was quite idyllic–at least in his memory.

I found this blogpost from 2011 about Waukegan which has a current photo of Ray Bradbury Park and the “ravine” which figures prominently in the book. I had a hard time visualizing it, so this helped me a lot!

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(It is amazing what you can find on the internet when you take the time to look!)

One of Bradbury’s themes is the necessity for keeping track of things, of noticing things and another is the relentless passing of time.

“It won’t work,’ Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. ‘No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you’re nine, you think you’ve always been nine years old and will always be. When you’re thirty, it seems you’ve always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You’re in the present, you’re trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen.”

He writes about what happiness is and what it means to be alive. All good things to contemplate. Clearly he was still contemplating them a few weeks before he died, when this was published in The New Yorker.

It all reminded me of this song by Gregory Alan Isakov

What are you reading?

*Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“For I acknowledge my faults; and my sin is ever before me.”*

by chuckofish

So how is your Lent going so far?

Screen Shot 2018-02-15 at 4.53.26 PM.pngHere’s a little book –“A Few Words About Lent”–that may interest you. It was written in 1861 by Charles Todd Quintard, whose feast day is today on the Episcopal Church calendar. Charles was an American physician and clergyman who became the second bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee and the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of the South.

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Mighty God, we bless thy Name for the example of thy bishop Charles Todd Quintard, who persevered to reconcile the divisions among the people of his time: Grant, we pray, that thy Church may ever be one, that it may be a refuge for all, for the honor of thy Name; through Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Anyway, it is finally Friday. The OM and I are planning to road-trip to Columbia this weekend. On Saturday we will tour our state capitol with daughter #1. We are living in the fast lane, right?

Jefferson_City.jpgI am pretty excited to see the old river town. I have not been there since I accompanied daughter #2 and her fourth grade class on a field trip to Jefferson City back in the day.

Screen Shot 2018-02-15 at 1.33.26 PM.pngJefferson City is on the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau on the southern side of the Missouri River in a region known as Mid-Missouri. The Jeff City website proudly announces that Jefferson City was chosen by Rand McNally as “America’s Most Beautiful Small Town!” However, it does not say when that was. [I searched around the internet and it was 2013!]

When we get back on Sunday, we’ll hopefully get to see the wee babes. Last weekend little Lottie was sick with an ear infection, so only the wee lad and his dad came over.

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Here they are reading quietly together. Such book worms!

Here they are in their Olympics-watching outfits–remember the 1980 Miracle on Ice? Eruzione’s goal against the Soviet Union to clinch the “Miracle on Ice” victory is one of the most iconic sports moments of all time.

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But did you know that ESPN officially recognized it as the No. 1 greatest sports highlight of all time and Sports Illustrated has named it the No. 1 sports moment of the 20th century? I did not know that. I remember watching the game in the living room of the St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA, when I was on hall monitor duty that night. It was, indeed, rather exciting. I seem to remember a lot of screaming, my own included.

If you need a break from the 2018 Olympics, you might want to watch Miracle (2004), starring Kurt Russell as the U.S. ice hockey coach, Herb Brooks. It is pretty good and worth it to see Kurt Russell rock the (terrible) 1980 fashion and hair.

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Have a good weekend!

*Psalm 51: 3

BTW: the painting at the top is Saint Catherine of Siena besieged by demons (Anonymous). St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA, on the other hand, is named after Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of young women.

“Those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength”*

by chuckofish

Well, a weekend without many plans turned into a pretty busy weekend after all. And it was cold again–it even snowed on Sunday!

I followed my usual weekend routine plus I re-read The Hours by Michael Cunningham, which was good but not as good as I remembered. I was overly aware of his details and his writing in general. But there is some real truth in it.

She simply does what her daughter tells her to, and finds a surprising relief in it. Maybe, she thinks, one could begin dying into this: the ministrations of a grown daughter, the comforts of a room. Here, then, is age. Here are the little consolations, the  lamp and the book. Here is the world, increasingly managed by people who are not you; who will do either well or badly; who do not look at you when they pass you in the street.

I watched The Shape of Water (2017) which has been nominated for 13 Oscars, including best picture, and has already won a slew of awards.

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I did not like it. “‘The Shape of Water’ is partly a code-scrambled fairy tale, partly a genetically modified monster movie, and altogether wonderful,”  gushed the reviewer in the NYT.  I would beg to differ. “Bigotry and meanness flow through every moment like an underground stream,” he continued. This is true. We are shown several examples of this. Women, blacks and gays are treated badly. We see, we understand, we virtue-signal our superiority.  Men are the bad guys in this movie, the enemy. The only decent man is gay. (Oh, and the other is a communist spy.) The #1 scary villain, of course, is a white male who works for the military, is married, has two children, lives in suburbia, and aspires  to own a Cadillac. He is the real monster. I am tired of being hit over the head with this view of the world. “The most welcome and notable thing about ‘The Shape of Water’ is its generosity of spirit,” the NYT reviewer concludes. Is he kidding?

The wee babes, thankfully, came over for dinner on Sunday night. They cheered me up! They are so active now and curious, so happy. They get very excited about  peanut butter and jelly, 30-year old toys, investigating the kitchen, and checking out the handles on the highboy. The wee laddie climbed all the way up to the second floor twice.

IMG_1972.jpegMiss Lottie slept on my shoulder after arriving, but perked right up once she awakened. She is a speed demon on all fours and can crawl the circuit of our first floor in under a minute.

IMG_1978.jpegThe wee laddie can take up to six steps on his own and is swiftly gaining his sea legs.

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Now it’s back to the salt mine–have a good week!

*Isaiah 40:31

“And you O my soul where you stand, …Ceaselessly musing, venturing…”*

by chuckofish

Hello, February!

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The Olympic Games in PyeongChang begin in a little over a week.

PyeongChang_2018_mascot-01.jpgThis is the second time South Korea has hosted the Olympics–remember the summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988? I can’t say I remember much about them. I always used to love the winter Olympics with the skiing and the skating and the bobsledding. But I have to say that all the “big air” snowboarding and such leaves me cold. No one is an amateur anymore. Like everything else, it is all about the money and the politics. Oy.

It is also Black History Month.

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In the Episcopal Church we celebrate the life and ministry of the Rev. Absalom Jones, the first African American ordained as a priest in the U.S. “Stepping outside the box this year,” the diocese has designed a morning program for children and parents or grandparents. Gee, I can’t wait to bring the wee babes to this when they are old enough to appreciate it. We sent our kids to a public elementary school where they were in a racial minority, so they have always felt pretty comfortable wherever they find themselves–unlike those kids in the picture above who, we are led to believe, will encounter people of color in a “museum”. Oy.

The Orchid Show starts at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Screen Shot 2018-01-31 at 1.25.20 PM.pngBut orchids always kind of freak me out.

The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filtered through an aquarium tank.

Maybe I’ll just stay home and re-read The Big Sleep.

Thank goodness it is 31 Days of Oscar month on TCM. Lots of good movies to watch and/or DVR.

yankee doodle dandy.jpgFind something to do this month that you can relate to. Engage with some real people. Have fun! .Don’t waste the month of February.

*Walt Whitman, “A Noiseless Patient Spider”

Running on divine momentum

by chuckofish

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Somewhere in my reading recently I ran across the book Morte d’Urban by J.F. Powers, which won the National Book Award in 1963. (It was re-issued in 2000 by the New York Review of Books Classics series.) I had never heard of “this comic masterpiece” or its author. Upon doing a little research, I discovered that he was an American novelist and short-story writer “who often drew his inspiration from developments in the Catholic Church, and was known for his studies of Catholic priests in the Midwest. Although not a priest himself, he [was] known for having captured a “clerical idiom” in postwar North America.” I found it in my university library and checked it out.

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This cover art makes no sense.

It seemed to him that the Order of St Clement labored under the curse of mediocrity, and had done so almost from the beginning. In Europe, the Clementines hadn’t (it was always said) recovered from the French Revolution. It was certain that they hadn’t ever really got going in the New World. Their history revealed little to brag about-one saint (the Holy Founder) and a few bishops of missionary sees, no theologians worthy of the name, no original thinkers, not even a scientist. The Clementines were unique in that they were noted for nothing at all. They were in bad shape all over the world. The Chicago province was probably better off than the others, but that wasn’t saying much. Their college was failing, their high schools were a breakeven proposition at best, and their parishes, except for a few, were in unsettled parts of Texas and New Mexico where no order in its right mind would go. The latest white elephant was an abandoned sanitarium in rural Minnesota! But that was typical of Father Boniface and the rest of them. They just didn’t know a bad thing when they saw it-or a good one.

A book about such an Order has possibilities. It could be hilarious. But unfortunately, Morte d’Urban is merely excruciating. The  minor characters are not lovable, they are just annoying, and the hero–a priest with actual talent, but no real spiritual life–is not likable enough. I am not sure what to make of him. The irony of a talented, misused man laboring in a two-bit Order is lost when you realize that as a Christian, he shouldn’t care. And what is he good at really? Fund-raising? Indeed, we never really understand what motivates the hero. He does not seem to do anything out of religious fervor, love of the church or God. He seems to be driven by self-esteem. He makes one hanker for a priest like the one in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, who knows he is a bad priest:

“What an unbearable creature he must have been in those days–and yet in those days he had been comparatively innocent. That was another mystery: it sometimes seemed to him that venial sins–impatience, an unimportant lie, pride, a neglected opportunity–cut you off from grace more completely than the worst sins of all. Then, in his innocence, he had felt no love for anyone; now in his corruption he had learnt.”

Powers appears to have been too good a Catholic to really let go and be critical. He lays it all out–the priests who are not “called” to their work, who just want to get through the day with the least output of effort and then watch television; and their superiors who desire the same (just in a nicer setting) and seem to want to punish any priest who might outshine them. But he never asks why this is the situation. One feels that there should be at least one character who is not afraid to be openly critical of the Powers That Be.

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I can’t help seeing this as a movie–starring, you know, Bing Crosby as the go-getting priest, and Barry Fitzgerald, Regis Toomey and Pat O’Brien in supporting parts.  There doesn’t seem to be more to it and those actors’ participation would add some likability to the characters.

Am I missing something? Well, I am going to finish it, because I am curious to see where it is going. To call it a comic masterpiece is really over-selling it. Has anyone read it?

You might be interested in reading this about J.F. Powers and his obit in the NYT.

The painting at the top is “Woman Reading on a Settee” by William W. Churchill (American, 1858-1926)

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

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I am reading a bunch of different things.

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You will recall that My Friend Flicka, written by Wyomingite Mary O’Hara, was mentioned a couple of times in a Longmire mystery…so I felt I should read it since I never have. Written in 1941, it tells the story of Ken McLaughlin, the son of a a Wyoming rancher, and his horse Flicka. It was the first in a trilogy, followed by Thunderhead (1943) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1946). The popular 1943 film version featured young Roddy McDowell.

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They re-made Flicka in 2006 with a girl protagonist (of course) and Tim McGraw as the father. Oy.

Anyway, the book is very well-written and quite sophisticated for a young adult novel of that era–there is a graphic scene of yearlings being gelded which I could have lived without.  Furthermore, Ken’s mother is a Bryn Mawr graduate and they are Episcopalians! But I’m just not that interested in horses, I guess, because I’m not sure I will trudge on to the end.

I am also re-reading Mere Christianity, which–no surprise–is really good!

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

When I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, I read Jan Karon. So now I am reading These High, Green Hills.

Lunch at the Grill, thought Father Tim, was what kept life real. He had to confess, however, that he could hardly wait to get back to the office and finish the C.S. Lewis essay entitled “Thought, Imagination, Language.”

I also recently re-read The Free Man by Conrad Richter. It tells the story of Henry Free, a hard-working Palatine German who comes to farm in Pennsylvania but is tricked, along with many of his countrymen, by the British, and is sold as an indentured servant when he arrives in America.  He escapes and thrives and eventually fights for liberty on the battlefields of the Revolution. The book did not receive good reviews when it was published in 1943 during the height of WWII. I am not surprised, since the British–our allies!–are the bad guys. It must have been shocking and somewhat distasteful at the time. The lesson here is an important one though–the British are not always the good guys and the Germans not always the villains.

I admire Richter and his spare, but beautiful writing a lot. He is an all-but-forgotten writer these days, but I read that they are re-making the Awakening Land trilogy for television. Frances McDormand is going to play Sayward Luckett, the main character, which could be good or bad. Perhaps it will encourage someone to go back and read the books.

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What are you reading?

The painting at the top is “Evening at Home” by Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)

Fly sideways FRIYAY

by chuckofish

Just as I unpacked my turtlenecks and black tights, they are predicting broken records for heat this weekend! Good grief! No matter what people say about global warming, it has always been thus in flyover country.

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Que sera sera.

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This weekend I plan to finish Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes which I started last weekend. It is a straight up detective novel which someone left in the giveaway basket at work. I am enjoying it. Next on the docket is This House of Sky by Ivan Doig, which came highly recommended by someone whose opinion I value.

I have a work event on Sunday afternoon that I have to attend, and after that, the boy and daughter # 3 will come over. Can’t wait to see the wee babes, especially Lottie who decided to stand up this week!

Unknown-6.jpegShe has hitherto been reluctant to put her weight on her feet, but seems to have decided it is okay now. You go, Girl!

Unknown-7.jpegHer brother has been very encouraging.

BTW, on a historical/literary note, 138 years ago today Walt Whitman came to St. Louis to visit his brother, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, who was the city water commissioner. How about that? He liked the great river town, but wasn’t fond of the smog. In honor of his visit, and because it seems appropriate, here is a little bit of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry:

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These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)
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What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.

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Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Have a great weekend! Try to get out and look at a river and “people watch”. What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Not much, I think.