Uncategorized | dual personalities

May 12, 2014

“There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas.”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Mine was a busy one.

We went downtown. The sky threatened, but nothing much happened.

The Shocktop–mobile was down on Clark Street with a beer tap in the trunk and lots of girls in hotpants throwing bar towels up to us on the balcony. (I got one. Thanks.)

You could see into Busch Stadium from our vantage point, but the Cardinals were away Friday night.

Happily my friend in Atlanta sent me this from Wednesday night’s game:

Saturday afternoon I went to cheer on the Hounds in the boy’s lacrosse game to no avail. They lost, but it was a lovely day to sit on folding chairs and enjoy the breeze. The OM ate a hotdog, a hamburger and a brat. I got sunburned in awkward places. Good times.

Coach Compton restrains himself

Sunday I went to church where I substituted for both lectors and got a high-five from Jim, the assisting priest. I also heard that the boy’s best man and best friend (finally) got the green light from the Bishop of New York to become an Episcopal Priest. The number of hoops our denomination makes a person jump through is truly astonishing. Now he will start applying to divinity schools and continue to wait for another year to get the ball rolling. So hats off to Michael and cheers to a fine young man.

And as the weekend drew to a close, we went to the boy’s house where he and daughter #3 prepared a delicious Mother’s Day bar-be-que dinner for us, her parents and her lovely grandmother.

What a great weekend!

*Well, there ain’t, but there is a country song: “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”…

There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas
Creation’s most unique and precious pearls
And heaven help us always to remember
That the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world

7 Comments

May 10, 2014

[S]he was old and wise, which meant tired and disappointed…*

by chuckofish

I approached this last week with mixed emotions. First, I had to attend a departmental retirement party. The festivities were complicated by internal politics, the details of which I will spare you. Suffice it to say that one of the retirees (a dear friend) refused to attend, several faculty members weren’t speaking to each other, and there were awkward pauses during the speech-making as people struggled to find nice things to say. The DH and I cut out as soon as we could.

Meanwhile, back at home, the mountainous backlog of laundry continued to grow as we awaited the washing machine repairman. On Monday he arrived promptly as promised and after fixing the problem swiftly and surely, left with a gentle admonition to keep an eye on the first load to make sure that the machine really was working. That should have clued me in, but he left, I did laundry, and then got engrossed in my book (more on that later). Much to my chagrin, when at last I checked the machine I discovered that my basement was flooded (what, again? you ask).

like this, but not this

Urgent telephone calls and more waiting ensued. All this enforced leisure was to the good, however, as I had plenty of time to start my summer reading.

First on the list was the book that my dear, retiring friend lent me, Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James. It’s an inspector Dalgliesh mystery set at an Anglican seminary in East Anglia. It was very enjoyable and well written (I learned new words: etiolated and orotund) as well as a great deal about the inner workings of the Church of England.

Central to the plot was the controversy over modernizing the church to be relevant to ’21st century people’. I could certainly relate to that as my own church is suffering from the urge to modernize (especially regarding pronouns) in order to ‘be inclusive’. Those who hold this position apparently consider Christianity to be a nice fairytale generated by humans to console themselves. I have nothing against changing church-made rules, but if you can change the core beliefs at will to suit yourself, then it is all meaningless. So whether I’m ‘old and wise’ or just ‘tired and disappointed’, I’m not going to stop referring to God as ‘the father’.

Having finished the mystery, I have started a reread of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which I hope to use in an independent study in the fall. Inside my copy it reads (in my own handwriting), “to Sarah from Daddy, Christmas 1971”. It was kind of a big deal to get a copy of the book. In those days there was no Amazon and so my father had to do some serious research to find it and then special order it through his favorite local bookstore, Paul’s Books. I remember being really thrilled by this gift as I had become fascinated with T.E. after seeing the movie “Lawrence of Arabia”.

Can you blame me? Look at how cute Peter O’Toole is! My BFF, Lars, gave me the deluxe anniversary edition of that movie a few years ago and I clearly need to watch it again very soon.

I’m simultaneously reading James Webb’s Fields of Fire, another work-related read. It’s a famous Vietnam war novel similar to Karl Marlantes’, Matterhorn, except that it came out in 1979 instead of 2010. It will be interesting to see to what degree the immediacy of events shaped Webb’s understanding of his experience. Both authors served as marines in Vietnam and both were highly decorated for their efforts.

After I finish these books, I’m going to find something romantic and/or funny — I’ll definitely need a break from war. Any suggestions?

*T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

1 Comment

May 9, 2014

All shall be well

by chuckofish

What could be better than Julian of Norwich and the Moody Blues on Friday?

It was Julian’s day on the Episcopal Calendar yesterday. I am a big fan. She is “venerated” in the Anglican and Lutheran churches, but has never been officially beatified by the R.C. church. Oh, really, you say?

Anyway, she was born in England about 1342 during the time of the Black Death. When she was thirty years old, she became gravely ill and was expected to die. Then, on the seventh day, the medical crisis passed, and she had a series of fifteen visions, or “showings,” in which she was led to contemplate the Passion of Christ. These brought her great peace and joy.

Julian on the west front of Norwich Cathedral

She became an anchoress–a person called to a solitary life, but one that was not cut-off from the world, but one anchored in it. Her life was one of prayer, contemplation and counseling, a life highly thought of by people of the time. Her home was a small room, or cell, attached to the Church of S. Julian, Bishop of Le Mans, just off one of the main streets of Norwich. The results of her meditations she wrote in a book called Revelations of Divine Love.

And from the time that [the vision] was shown, I desired often to know what our Lord’s meaning was. And fifteen years and more afterward I was answered in my spiritual understanding, thus: ‘Would you know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Keep yourself therein and you shall know and understand more in the same. But you shall never know nor understand any other thing, forever.’

Thus I was taught that love was our Lord’s meaning. And I saw quite clearly in this and in all, that before God made us, he loved us, which love was never slaked nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his work, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us. And in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had a beginning. But the love wherein he made us was in him with no beginning. And all this shall be seen in God without end …

I have read her wonderful meditations and let’s just say there was a whole lot of hi-lighting going on.

I have a busy weekend planned. How about you?

4 Comments

May 8, 2014

A hill of beans

by chuckofish

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.

–Henry David Thoreau

Well, I know just what old Thoreau is talking about. Do you?

I go out to see if my pumpkin plants are still where I planted them every morning and then again when I come home from work.

The OM says, ironically, “Are they still there?” But I am worried about them! My past experience teaches me that their chances are not particularly good. Pesky garden varmints enjoy digging around in this bed, but so far so good.

I love this time of year though, don’t you?

When the plants are just starting to come up and the weeds and violets and creeping vines have not taken over.

peony buds

The first rose bud

When insect life is minimal. When it is still cool enough to enjoy my time in the yard. I admit I lose interest quickly when our flyover temperatures soar. I am a fair-weather gardener.

But you know how my mind works. Thoreau’s quote got me thinking about “a hill of beans” and how that expression became a synonym for something of negligible importance or value. I wonder how that came to be the case? Anyway, this made me think of that famous scene at the end of Casablanca, when Rick says to Ilsa: “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that…”

Yeats, you recall, wanted “Nine bean-rows” and “a hive for the honey-bee” in his Innisfree home.

Hmmm. If my pumpkins amount to even a hill of beans this year, maybe next year I’ll plant some beans.

9 Comments

May 7, 2014

Oh, sweet and blessed country, The home of God’s elect! Oh, sweet and blessed country That eager hearts expect!*

by chuckofish

Well, I got a little weepy in the car yesterday morning on the way to work. I had just heard from a friend that another friend’s mother had died. The friend was at our reunion this weekend and her mother had died the day after she returned to Virginia. Listening to Steve Earle’s Pilgrim was just a little too much for me.

Harriet and I met in the three-year old class at Sunday School and went to school together starting at age four. She is my oldest friend.

Sometimes I would go home with her after church because she was an only child and needed some company. So I have known her mother a long time. Her father was much older, a dignified, shadowy figure in the background, around whom we had to be quiet. But her mother was quite a gal.

Unlike other mothers of that period, she always wore pants–grey flannel pants with a blue oxford shirt. It was like a uniform. She wore a navy blue dress to church. She was from Texas and spoke with a distinctive accent. She was a small woman, but she knew how to shoot, and God help the person who broke into her home or threatened her child. She was tough–Barbara Stanwyck tough.

Furthermore, she was an M.D. at a time when there weren’t a whole lot of female doctors. She had worked in a M.A.S.H. unit in Korea**. She had seen it all.

After the war, she got married and had a child, and she retired from doctoring. She moved into a house in suburban flyover-ville and lived a presumably quiet life. But what do I really know? To me, she was a pillar of the Altar Guild.

All through high school I sat with her in church every Sunday, because my own mother skipped church and prepared her Sunday School lesson in her classroom. I logged many an hour with Harriet and her parents in the third row from the back, Epistle side.

This past weekend we were talking about people’s mothers and how you always knew the ones who didn’t really care about you and the ones who probably didn’t even like you at all. I knew Mrs. T liked me. She liked me a lot.

Here is a picture of Mary T (still wearing grey flannel pants) in 1985. She is pictured with her first grandchild, along with my daughter on my mother’s lap–all four named Mary.

* Jerusalem the Golden by Bernard of Cluny, Hymn #309 (Lutheran Worship Hymnal)
**I am not sure of my facts here, but it had to be Korea (not WWII) because of her age.

6 Comments

May 6, 2014

“See what the boys in the backroom will have And tell them I’m having the same.”*

by chuckofish

On this day in 1992 Marlene Dietrich died. She was 91 and had lived quite a life.

[Dietrich’s gravestone in Berlin. The inscription reads “Hier steh ich an den Marken meiner Tage“–“Here I stand at the milestone of my days”.]

Marlene Dietrich stands out in the history of film as one of the few German actresses who attained international significance. I just watched her recently in the 1942 version of The Spoliers with John Wayne and Randolph Scott. She really steals the show, even with John Wayne opposite. She is exotic, beautiful, smart, and likable–not always the case with the femme fatale type.

Dietrich, a staunch anti-Nazi, became an American citizen in 1939. The U.S. Government awarded Dietrich the Medal of Freedom for her war work. Dietrich has been quoted as saying this was the honor of which she was most proud in her life. They also awarded her the Operation Entertainment Medal. The French Government made her a Chevalier (later upgraded to Commandeur) of the Legion d’Honneur and a Commandeur of the Ordre des Artes et des Lettres. Her other awards include the Medallion of Honor of the State of Israel, the Fashion Foundation of America award and a Chevalier de L’ordre de Leopold.

Yes, she was quite a gal and deserves a toast tonight. Here she is singing “Lili Marlene” in german. I seem to recall my pater getting weepy over this one.

*See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have by Frank Loesser from Destry Rides Again

4 Comments

May 5, 2014

“If I dressed like that, I’d have to kick my own ass.”*

by chuckofish

So I survived my reunion.

I must say, it was even fun. (The wine flowed freely.)

Friday night we all got together for a gabfest. The decibel level was out of this world. There was cake too!

On Saturday two of my good friends ventured down to my flyover town and we ate lunch outside at a restaurant across from the train station and watched the trains go by. Then, at their insistence, we went to Ted Drewes for concretes which they do not have back east.

They were impressed, of course.

Saturday night we MI gals celebrated together with our Country Day compatriots (40 years ago the two schools were happily separate) at the beautiful and palatial home of one of their classmates. It was a fun party too.

Even the OM had fun. And why wouldn’t he?

The OM enjoys the highly stimulating environment

He had more fun than last year at his own reunion.

In other news I went to church and got to read the first lesson, which was a good one from the book of Acts in which Peter exhorts the Jews to repent! Right up my alley. Afterwards the boy came over and we caught up. Then I talked to daughters # 1 and 2 on the phone–more gabbing!

I worked in the yard and my little pumpkin project seems to be moving forward.

I hope the marigolds will scare away nibblers.

How was your weekend?

•Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler)

5 Comments

May 3, 2014

The Luddite concedes

by chuckofish

In a recent faculty senate meeting at my north country university a sharp young student presented a plan that would require faculty to do all their grading online, thus obviating the need to use today’s greatest environmental threat, paper. For a number of fairly obvious reasons, some of us protested this plan. I pointed out that paper is a sustainable resource that is a lot more environmentally friendly than computers, which are full of nasty, toxic materials and take a lot of energy to run. After a shocked silence, I was reassured in terribly patronizing tones that while they (the sustainability police) understood that I was “afraid of change”, I would get used to it if only I would be open minded. Sigh.

Well, it’s true that I’m no techno wizard. I have a cell phone but almost never use it. I can text, but don’t like to and I have no desire to learn to tweet, instagram, snapchat or perform any of those other trendy activities (at least I’ve heard of them). I am not really anti-technology. Just this week, thanks to my dear husband’s computer savvy and a cool little device he bought for Christmas, we watched son #3’s end of year concert live from Vermont on our TV. The quality wasn’t great, but we still got to see him perform in all three music ensembles (jazz, guitar, and ‘funk fusion’). Not only that, but the husband took photos throughout by hitting “screen capture” on his computer. How cool is that? Here are a couple choice pics taken while Tim played solo and the camera was on him:

and another

and even a close-up!

I’m so proud! 🙂

So, yes, technology can and does do wonderful things. And no, I’m not afraid of change, although I still prefer to grade papers that I can hold in my hand and write all over with a red pen. Not only can I do a better job that way, but there’s something cathartic about scrawling red squiggly lines through egregiously bad prose.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite verses from Tennyson, despite the fact that he is now just as unfashionable as hardcopy. I hope it brings to mind quieter times, beautiful gardens, and pens applied to paper thoughtfully and deliberately.

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.

It kind of makes me want to take a nap, which would not be a bad idea were it not 10:30 in the morning. Maybe later…

Have a great weekend!

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies
Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/There_is_sweet_music_here_that_softer_falls#mkjTiJEwmh8qCqz4.99

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies
Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/There_is_sweet_music_here_that_softer_falls#mkjTiJEwmh8qCqz4.99

2 Comments

May 2, 2014

Palmam qui meruit ferat*

by chuckofish

Here are the Junior and Senior Kindergarten classes of Mary Institute in 1960-61. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

I am the dark-haired squirt in the middle of the front row. There are 23 of us in the Jr. K class. Fourteen of us original girls graduated in a class of fifty thirteen years later.

I hear that there will be 36 of us attending our 40th reunion this weekend. Oy.

So wish me luck this weekend. Why are reunions so stressful? I think we all need to pat ourselves on the back for surviving high school and moving on.

In other news, my pumpkin seedlings are coming along nicely and will be ready to plant soon.

I still love to watch the miracle of seeds planted in soil push their way up through the dirt. Just like in Jr. Kindergarten!

Have a good weekend!

* “Let whoever earns the palm bear it.”

8 Comments

May 1, 2014

“I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go ahead and be one.”*

by chuckofish

Martha Jane Canary (May 1, 1852 – August 1, 1903) was born today in 1852. She is, of course, better known as Calamity Jane.

Born in Mercer County, Missouri, Canary was the oldest of many siblings. Her father was a farmer. After some legal wrangling over land, the family sold their property and left Missouri in the early 1860s, heading for Montana gold. But they fell on hard times; her mother died in a mining camp in Blackfoot City, Montana, when Canary was about 9. After taking the children to Salt Lake City, her father died soon after.

Her life, already a hard one, became at that point the stuff of legend. As she became a dime-novel heroine and stage performer, she enlarged her myth with every new story. It is nearly impossible to know where the truth lies and who she really was. Well, she was and still is an intriguing oddity that fires the imagination.

Not surprisingly Calamity Jane has been portrayed by myriad actresses on the large and small screen. In the movies she has been played by Jean Arthur, Jane Russell, Yvonne De Carlo, Doris Day, Catherine O’Hara, Ellen Barkin–to name a few. On television Stephanie Powers, Anjelica Huston and Jane Alexander have attempted to represent her.

Of the movies I like The Plainsman (1936) with Jean Arthur as Calamity and Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok.

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, it is a very exciting movie and Arthur and Cooper are well matched. I’m sure the plot has practically no basis in reality, but it is a good movie and Jean Arthur is no glamour girl. Cooper, as usual, is adorable.

I also like Anjelica Huston as Calamity in the 1995 TV mini-series Buffalo Girls, an adaption of the book by Larry McMurtry. Physically, she is the most like the real Martha Jane–tall and somewhat manly and with (we hope) a heart of gold.

One of the most ridiculous presentations of Calamity Jane’s life is that put forth in the1953 musical Calamity Jane, starring Doris Day.

But one can not help but love this rendition and Doris Day who always gives 110%. This film focuses on the relationship between Jane and Wild Bill (Howard Keel) and Doris gets to sing lyrics like: “At last my heart’s an open door / And my secret love’s no secret any more.” Yikes. The song won the Academy Award for Best Song that year, and with Doris singing, why wouldn’t it?

I think I will watch Doris in Calamity Jane because I DVR’d it when it was on TCM on her birthday a few weeks ago. Here’s a little something to whet your appetite: