Hard to believe it is October 10th already and we are well on our way to Halloween (or, if you prefer, Reformation Day) and the slide to the end of the year!
Don’s chrysanthemums
Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Ben at his fancy retirement community. We were joined by three other friends who live there which made it almost a party. It was quite enjoyable and a reminder that old friends are best. We talked about poetry and old times and avoided politics.
Speaking of celebrating, today we toast the great Yul Brynner on the anniversary of his death in 1985. Yul was without peer and we will enjoy watching one of his movies.
Shall it be The King and I (1956) or The Magnificent Seven (1960) or The Ten Commandments (1956)?
We are experiencing absolutely beautiful weather here in flyover country and I feel almost guilty considering what those south and east of us are enduring. There but for the grace of God…Here’s an inspiring article about God’s Grace working through the church in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Daughter #2 sent this picture and it made me chuckle:
Preschool on the prairie
And finally, this made me laugh–100 raccoons! ‘Somehow the word got out in raccoon land and they all showed up to her house expecting a meal,’ Kevin McCarty, a spokesperson for the Kitsap County Sheriff, said.
While staying on the Navajo Rez in Monument Valley we were reminded several times of the Navajo code talkers of WWII fame. You will recall that this was the ingenious idea of using the Navajo language to write an unbreakable code–one of America’s all-time great secret weapons. After Pearl Harbor, and because the Japanese had broken all the codes previously sent over the radio waves, the Marines were desperate to find a secure way to communicate vital information with precious little time. After several successful tests, the Navajo language was approved as a communication code.
But we wondered, who originally had this brilliant idea?
Well, I looked into this and it was Philip Johnston, the son of a Christian missionary, who had grown up on a Navajo reservation and had learned the language in his youth. In fact, Johnston became so fluent in the (very difficult) Navajo language that he was asked in 1901 at age 9 to serve as an interpreter for a Navajo delegation sent to Washington, D.C., to lobby for Indian rights. Philip was the Navajo/English translator between the local Navajo leaders and President Theodore Roosevelt.
Johnston said he came up with the idea of enlisting Navajos as signalmen early in 1942, when he read a newspaper story about the army’s use of several Native Americans during training maneuvers with an armored division in Louisiana. The article also stated that, during World War I, Native Americans had acted as signalmen for the Canadian army to send secure messages about shortages of supplies or ammunition.
Shortly thereafter, Johnston contacted the military with his idea: “My plan is not to use translations of an Indian language, but to build up a code of Indian words. Let’s imagine this code included terms such as ‘fast shooter’ to designate a machine gun, and ‘iron rain’ for a barrage. Navajo personnel would be thoroughly drilled to understand and use these substitutions.”
I mean, brilliant.
During the course of the war, about 400 Navajos participated in the code talker program. Their hard work was not recognized until after the declassification of the operation in 1968.
President Ronald Reagan gave the Code Talkers a Certificate of Recognition and declared August 14 “Navajo Code Talkers Day” in 1982. President George W. Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to the four surviving Code Talkers at a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington in July 2001.
To my knowledge Philip Johnston was never recognized with a medal or special ceremony for his great idea. But hats off to him.
If you would like to read more about this, check this and this out.
Well, I did not cry at the Grand Canyon. And I did not cry in Monument Valley, despite a lot of teasing by daughter #1 concerning that.
But the Grand Canyon is pretty overwhelming, I must say.
“We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self.”
–John Piper
Always promoting Ultimate Lacrosse
I talked to my Bible Study leader, a woman in her eighties, on Sunday about our trip and she said she had been to the Grand Canyon with her husband and they had hiked from the South Rim to the canyon base. I was, like, WHEN? She said, oh, a few years ago, when I was in my late fifties-early sixties. Well, we made it to the South Rim (by train) and stayed there! The OM was really having trouble, but even so, I would not have attempted hiking. I saw three separate elderly men trip and fall and other people take ridiculous risks to take photos. I was not there to prove anything.
We stayed at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel in Williams, AZ, “where comfort and leisure await”…
…and took the two-hour and fifteen minute train ride to the canyon and back with a three-hour stopover. This was perfect for us. During that time we spent a goodly portion in the bar of the historic El Tovar Hotel just steps away from the Rim. Teddy Roosevelt stayed there.
I feel no shame about this.
We all really enjoyed the train ride to and from the Canyon. There were even cowboy re-enactors who arrived on horseback…
…and then appeared on board to rob the train. (One was a dwarf.) Lottie perked up when she heard about this development–“Wait a minute. You were robbed?! The train was robbed?”
Hokey, maybe, but enjoyable, although daughter #1 was unamused when she, of course, was singled out by the “Marshall” (twice) to engage with.
Anyway, the train is the way to go–no parking, no waiting in line, a bar car.
We had some fun on this trip, but, as always, I was glad to get back to my flyover home.
Also, if you want to help the people in North Carolina and all those effected by Hurricane Helene, give to Samaritan’s Purse.
Samaritan’s Purse is responding in five locations after Hurricane Helene left a 500-mile trail of devastation from the Gulf Coast of Florida to the mountains of western North Carolina.
The storm hit Florida late on Thursday, Sept.26, as a Category 4 hurricane. It then tore through Georgia and the mountains and foothills of the Carolinas, toppling trees and causing severe flash flooding. The damage is historic. More than 225 people have died, with many still missing.
We have established 3 relief bases in North Carolina and stretching into eastern Tennessee. Volunteers are also working at sites in Georgia and Florida.
Volunteer teams started work on Sept. 30 from all six locations.
Hello! We made it back from the Navajo Nation and Arizona.
All went pretty smoothly and my travel planning skills were generally high-fived all around. The OM had some trouble adjusting to the altitude, but he soldiered on. We hydrated. Daughter #1 did a A+++++ job as our driver/navigator/community engagement coordinator.
Monument Valley is a remote place and it is not easy to get to. It was a six hour drive from Phoenix (this after getting up at 3 a.m. to make a 6:00 a.m. flight!) through the mountains. No one told us Flagstaff is in the mountains! (If I knew, I had forgotten.) Daughter #1 will regale you with her memories of this later in the week.
But we made it and I am amazed when I look back at my photos and realize, yes, we were actually there in this amazing, other-wordly place. You literally can not take a bad picture.
We stayed at Goulding’s Lodge, which has been in operation 100 years. It is where John Ford and his actors and crew stayed and that is respected and honored, but not overdone or commercialized.
We enjoyed it very much and would recommend it highly. There is a dusty old museum…
…and you can go in Nathan Brittles’ (John Wayne’s) cabin from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
We stayed in a “villa” and not the main hotel…
This was our view in the morning, drinking coffee on the porch…
We took a great 3.5 hour tour led by Sam, our Navajo guide, through Monument Valley. We rode in a Hatari-reminiscent open vehicle and got out at many points along the way and walked around.
Our fellow tourists, most of whom were Europeans (French and German), looked exactly like variations on my brother and sister-in-law. We were all exhausted and dusty by the end. Wonderful.
Truly it was kind of a religious experience for me, on the level with going to the Holy Land a few years ago. No kidding. I loved everything.
Back home on Saturday night I watched My Darling Clementine (1946) and it was awesome.
On Sunday we watched Ford’s masterpiece, The Searchers (1956). OMG.
Wow.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about our adventures at the Grand Canyon!
P.S. Many thanks to daughter #2 and DN for taking care of the blog last week! Much appreciated. (Hope it didn’t inconvenience the prairie girls too much 😉!)
There’s not a plant or flow’r below, but makes Thy glories known, And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne; While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care; And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God, art present there.
DN here with a Friday guest post. But don’t worry, I won’t be exhorting you to flip through a book…unless that book is full of compact discs! Hundreds of compact discs? Binders full of compact discs, and a car with a compact disc player to boot? Yes, please.
Thank you for saving these, mom and dad!
Unfortunately, a few of these discs do not play in our Subaru. Do you remember when a handful of record labels began copy-protecting CDs, so that a disc’s content could not be burned to a blank CD-R or even played on a computer at all? The band My Morning Jacket was so displeased that they sued Sony over it and offered to rip copies of their album themselves for fans. It’s a shame. That album has somegreattracks.
This copy protection technology continues to haunt me, because it seems that our Subaru’s sound system works by reading or downloading the tracks rather than simply “playing” them. Is this different from the anti-skip technology found in portable CD players of yore? I have no idea. Was life better when the tunes were pumped through a cassette adapter attached to the Panasonic Extra Anti-Shock ((Shock Wave)) with XBS [extra bass]?
Well, no. This thing skipped constantly from the floor on the front passenger’s side. I guess I’ll just have to learn to live without the few albums that Subie won’t play. Even if this 2003 article from a law journal argues that copy protection violates my First Amendment rights.
Even without the copy-protected CDs, there is plenty to listen to. Ever on-trend, Katie’s recent favorite has been Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? How many four-year-olds do you know who wander around the house singing softly to themselves about how it’s never going to be the same / cause the years are falling by like the rain? Her wistfulness is haunting. What could my four-year-old feel nostalgic for?
Katie’s mood calls to mind our return trip from Michigan last month, when she burst into tears listening to a Pete the Cat song about how hard it is to be “the new kid.” Despite her tears, Katie wouldn’t let us stop playing the song. She wanted to hear the song! She wanted to feel sad. She told us this. She has a rich interior life.
Among the pleasures of replaying (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is the chance to introduce my incredible Oasis Voice™ to a new generation. Katie does not appreciate it—yet. En uh shahm-payn soup-er-know-ver en the skaw-eye.
Nailed it.
Another fun wrinkle is that Katie has begun to mashup Oasis and Pete the Cat. For example, in “One Cat’s Bucket,” a song about finding the good in every day, the chorus is:
One cat’s bucket is empty He ain’t got nothing to show Another cat flips it upside down And makes himself a bongo
But now—and you’ll never be able to unhear it after reading the following words—the other cat flips it upside down, and cham-pagne sup-er-nov-er.
For the record, Ida loves my Oasis impression.
I am of the opinion that the disappearance of physical media also entails the loss of certain listening habits—habits that provided the conditions for an important attitude or value. Be patient with art. The hassle of unwrapping, uncasing, and inserting a CD meant that you were more likely to listen to an entire album. The difficulty of fast forwarding to a specific moment on a track meant that you didn’t even try. You just waited–and not even for that long! Just for a little bit. You waited, and while you were waiting, you listened. Now our Subaru has a digital slider that I can tap and drag to any moment in a song.
On the other hand, zoomers are apparently buying CDs again. Maybe there is hope after all. At least we know this for certain: Ida will never stop thinking that her dad is hilarious.
Back on the prairie, we are making the most of cooler temps and autumn sun. Katie is back to school, with lots of fun news to report each Tuesday and Thursday morning; Ida is growing adorably in that not-quite-toddler stage, especially during her few hours of solo time with mom each week. Life is good.
You can see that prairie wind picking back up…
Ida’s favorite things include carrying a purse (a vintage mini tote from Colonial Williamsburg), reading Pete the Cat books like her sister, and pushing laundry baskets in a circuit around the first floor. She continues to eat an ungodly amount of beans when given the chance. To quote Captain Raymond Holt, “Why would anyone spill beans? They’re one of nature’s most densely packed protein sources, and they’re unsullied by flavor.”
Katie’s favorite things include working on her impressive writing skills, riding her tricycle, and reading books aloud with her own narration. Yesterday in the car, she “read” from Maybelle The Cable Car, “Are you in the spirit of the operator? No. I’m a bus.” Do you recognize the Sufjan Stevens paraphrase?
Sometimes life with a baby sister involves a lot of cuddling and kissing and cooing, “Oh Ida, you precious baby love of mine.” Sometimes life with an older a sister involves intentionally blowing raspberries in her face because you relish the power of causing a 4-year-old’s menty b on the daily. It’s cool!! We are learning important lessons about interpersonal relationships (and comedic timing — Ida’s got it in spades). There is never a dull moment with these smart girls.
Today, I am writing about Thornton Wilder, a great American writer about whom my mother has posted before. While my post will certainly quote some wonderful Wilder passages, it is also about growing up as people and readers.
Over a decade ago, I was a research assistant for a professor in my graduate program’s department who was the editor the Thornton Wilder Journal and thus had funding for paid help. It was a great gig (extra funding, a CV line, a bit of experience doing different kinds of research), but meant working for someone who was…not always the most pleasant.
During that time, I distinctly recall at least one trip to the Library of Congress, traversing the underground tunnels to find the archive where I would request the letters I was to scan and transcribe for the professor. (I never undertook archival work for my own research, which is kind of a shame — I did learn a thing or two on those trips.) I also searched microfilmed newspapers for hours to confirm the page numbers for specific references on at least two occasions. All of this was dutifully documented on my Instagram account…
But because I found the professor himself to be unlikeable, I developed a misplaced bias against Thornton Wilder. Perhaps even more unfair, I lumped Wilder in with Eugene O’Neil, the other playwright on whom the professor was an expert, and whose letters were borderline unbearable to read. I had no idea what I was missing with Wilder! But I was 23, very starry-eyed about studying my own fave authors, and identified strongly as a “nineteenth-centuryist” — how exciting to identify as anything at all. Anyway, I will cut myself some slack.
I only finally started reading Thornton Wilder’s works after finishing Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake (2023), which concludes with an Author’s Note:
“I thank Thornton Wilder, who wrote the play that has been an enduring comfort, guide, and inspiration throughout my life. If this novel has a goal, it is to turn the reader back to Our Town, and to all of Wilder’s work. Therein lies the joy.”
Well, that “joy” got me, because Tom Lake had, for once in modern life, depicted a mother who feels immense joy with her daughters, despite having given up on fame and fortune after playing Our Town‘s Emily at three different life stages.
Did you know that Our Town is currently on Broadway starring Jim Parsons as the Stage Manager? That’s really something.
I have to say, though, that while Our Town was fantastic, Thornton Wilder’s The Eighth Day (1967) really blew my mind. In a class with John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1952), it is a family epic that traverses both American continents — centered in our very own Illinois! The novel moves swiftly with a murder-mystery plot and ruminates on family, morality, justice, ambition, and other such themes. I mean really — I plan to reread it so that I can absorb more.
“Mr. Ashley, kindly lift the rug and turn it over.” Roger did so. No figure could be traced on the reverse. It presented a mass of knots and frayed and dangling threads. With a gesture of the hand the Deacon directed Roger to replace it. “You are a newspaper man in Chicago. Your sister is a singer there. Your mother conducts a boardinghouse in Coaltown. Your father is in some distant country. Those are the threads and knots of human life. You cannot see the design.”
I dutifully read The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) as well, but I wasn’t as taken with it. You win some, you lose some. But just remember, you lose it all if you write off an entire author because of their association with one person whom you dislike!
Besides, a fun fact: DN asked me on our first date after I sent him a Facebook message (very 2013 of me) reminding him that we had yet to swap horror stories about the aforementioned Thornton Wilder scholar. We still joke that we owe our happy relationship to that grumpy old man…
STAGE MANAGER: I’ve married over two hundred couples in my day. Do I believe in it? I don’t know. M. . . .marries N. . . .millions of them. The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday-afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will, —
He now looks at the audience for the first time, with a warm smile that removes any cynicism from the next line.
Once in a thousand times it’s interesting.
— Well, let’s have Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”!
The organ picks up the March. The BRIDE and GROOM come down the aisle, radiant, but trying to be very dignified.
MRS. SOAMES: Aren’t they a lovely couple? Oh, I’ve never been to such a nice wedding. I’m sure they’ll be happy. I always say: happiness, that’s the great thing! The important thing is to be happy.
The BRIDE and GROOM reach the steps leading into the audience. A bright light is thrown upon them. They descend into the auditorium and run up the aisle joyously.
I did the flowers for church on Sunday–sunflowers make such a statement, don’t you think? I have a soft spot in my heart for them because years ago at my highfalutin’ Episcopal Church, the wife of the new rector put sunflowers on the altar and the frozen chosen ladies of the church were outraged. So when they are in season and available at Trader Joe’s, I always use them.
The OM and I went to the early service (and stayed for Sunday School) so we could finish early and get packed before going to the bud’s soccer game later in the afternoon.
This was accomplished and we brought daughter #1 home with us so that we could all get up at 3:00 am to Uber to the airport. Yikes.
While we are gone on our western adventure, daughter #2 will be filling in with literary thoughts and tales of the prairie girls…
…and updates of our travels. So be sure to stop by the blog this week.
And please don’t forget to keep us in your prayers.
And here’s a reminder from Tim Challies (and Hank Williams) not to let the dust gather on your Bible.
Not to sound like Katie, but to totally quote Katie, life has been a lot lately. Work has been busy, I’ve been overcommitted outside of work, we’re going to the Navajo Nation next week. It’s a lot. I am excited for our trip, but I’d like to just get to Arizona, you know? Also, today I found out I need a new boiler for my house and my bank account is like Homer going into the bushes. Don’t look at me?!
Anyway, Mr. Smith turns two today! Perhaps I’ll get him a treat and he can have extra time with Pappy. His real treat is his own spa vacation next week at the kennel where he can frolic with other dogs and people play with him. Shall we recreate this photo from his first birthday?
I might have to go to the Dollar Tree for some full size party hats. Or maybe a birthday headband! Updates to come…
Join our respective bible study groups and pray for our safe (and smooth) travels this week. Onward!
dual personalities 