dual personalities

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

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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:

So let’s raise a glass to Martha Jane Canary on her birthday, the American legend and the real woman, whoever she was.

*Attributed to Calamity Jane

5 Comments

April 30, 2014

Meet me at the fair

by chuckofish

One hundred and ten years ago today the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (informally known as the St. Louis World’s Fair) opened in my flyover town. It was quite a Big Deal.

Are those elephants in the lower left?

The Fair’s 1,200 acre site was designed by George Kessler and was located on the grounds of what is now Forest Park and on the campus of my flyover university. There were over 1500 buildings, connected by some 75 miles of roads and walkways. It was said to be impossible to give even a hurried glance at everything in less than a week. The Palace of Agriculture alone covered some 20 acres.

Exhibits were staged by 62 foreign countries, the United States government and 43 of the then 45 states. 19,694,855 individuals were in attendance at the fair.

Here is a map of the Fair.

The fairgrounds were filled with spectacular buildings.

The Palace of Liberal Arts

The Aviary was built by the U.S. government and was the largest free flight birdcage ever built.

It is still here, a part of our zoo.

The administrative center of the Fair was none other than Brookings Hall at my home away from home.

The Fair hosted the 1904 Summer Olympics, the first ever held in the U.S.

Many of the events were held at Francis Field.

The field has been updated, but is still very much in use at my flyover university.

Well, it’s probably true that we peaked back in 1904, but we’re still a pretty cool place. And it’s fun to see that parts of our illustrious past are still very much a part of our everyday life in the twenty-first century.

8 Comments

April 29, 2014

Modern life: one, two you know what to do

by chuckofish

There are many aspects of modern life that drive me crazy and some that genuinely alarm me. But there are a few things that are pretty cool.

When daughter #1 was home and we were lunching at our favorite Cafe Osage, we both pricked up our ears when a certain song was playing in the background. “Who is that?” we both said.

We couldn’t pin it down, so daughter #1 got out her phone and opened some new-fangled app and held up her phone for a moment. “Oh,” she said, checking her phone. “It’s Steve Earle and the Del McCoury band!”

A few days later, having ordered it on Amazon, it appeared at my door.

Pretty amazing, n’est-ce pas?

Anyway, it is not a new album (1999), but it is a very good one–great songs including a favorite of mine, “Dixieland”. You gotta love a song that a) is about the 20th Maine and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and b) works the unmelodic name of Chamberlain into it several times:

I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine and I’d march to hell and back again
For Colonel Joshua Chamberlain – we’re all goin’ down to Dixieland

The CD also includes the song “Pilgrim”, which I hope someone sings at my funeral–Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, GIllian Welch et al would be nice, but not a deal breaker.

I am just a pilgrim on this road, boys
This ain’t never been my home
Sometimes the road was rocky ‘long the way, boys
But I was never travelin’ alone
We’ll meet again on some bright highway
Songs to sing and tales to tell
But I am just a pilgrim on this road, boys
Until I see you fare thee well

Ain’t no need to cry for me, boys
Somewhere down the road you’ll understand
‘Cause I expect to touch his hand, boys
Put a word in for you if I can

Hats off to Steve Earle and modern technology!

6 Comments

April 28, 2014

Oh me of little faith*

by chuckofish

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

John 20:19

This Sunday’s Gospel reading was the scripture where Jesus does not bother to use the door which is locked anyway. He just appears to 10 of the remaining 11 disciples. This is mentioned very casually. No one really makes a big deal of it. Because they don’t, one thinks it is probably just what happened. At least I think so.

The disciples, huddled in their locked room after everything that has happened, are both afraid and ashamed of their fear and their behavior in general. We should try to remember the disciples when we are fearful and anxious. They were not paragons of strength. Far from it. Some of them were not even very smart. (Think of Peter.) They were just like us. After this visit from Jesus, however, when he breathes on them and they receive the Holy Spirit, they seem to have gotten their collective acts together. It took a second visit for Thomas, because he missed the first and refused to believe without “touching and seeing”.

Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We all have our doubts, and that’s okay. Doubts, Frederick Buechner says, are “the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

Well, my mind wandered during the sermon on this scripture, but this is what I was thinking.

Meanwhile this weekend I enjoyed the spring weather by working in the yard. I also went on a birthday outing with my best Grace girlfriends. Our fearless leader and party planner Carla reasoned that, because we never have room for dessert when we go out to lunch, we should just go out for dessert. Brilliant! So we ventured downtown to a place famous for its ice cream concoctions and had sundaes. When was the last time you had a sundae? I cannot begin to remember when that was. It really was a treat.

Art Deco walls at the “Fountain”

We also went to the main branch of the downtown library which has been recently renovated.

Notice the 250th birthday cake in front and the spire barely visible behind of our Episcopal Cathedral

Notice the 250th birthday cake in front and the spire of our Episcopal Cathedral barely visible behind the library.

Intrepid explorers that we are, we had a super fun time.

I also re-read “The Snow Goose” a very short novella by Paul Gallico about a lonely hunchbacked artist who participates in the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 and the snow goose that watches over him. It gave me chills.

If you are looking for something to pick up and read at one sitting, I highly recommend this marvelous book.

Have a good week!

* Nickle Creek

2 Comments

April 27, 2014

Fois do t’anam. Peace to his soul

by chuckofish

Yesterday was the funeral of Canadian author, Alistair MacLeod, who wrote one of my favorite books, No Great Mischief. It’s not one of the best books ever written — and indeed, it is over-written in places — but it deals with a lot of things I care deeply about: the importance of family and family history and how the world tends to crush without thought or remorse anyone who won’t keep up with its changing ways or jump on the bandwagon of “progress”. Boy can I relate.

No Great Mischief is all about a community forged through suffering and shared experiences, such as work, music-making, and story-telling. Music pervades the novel; there is a tune for every occasion. We live in a world in which everyone has their own soundtrack so if we are not musicians, music tends to separate rather than join us, but it hasn’t always been that way. Here, in honor of Mr. MacLeod, is one of the wonderful Scottish laments so popular in Cape Breton and so prevalent in the book.

May he rest well, reunited with his people.

*******

It wasn’t all melancholy and nostalgia this week, however. We had a couple of happy events involving boy number two. First, on Friday we attended our son’s honors project presentation. They had the humanities honors students and some of the summer fellowship students (including the girlfriend) present at a poster session. It was interesting and fun.

My pics didn’t turn out very well, which is why I am not including one of Nicole’s project.

Then yesterday we attended “moving up day” where Chris received an English department award for ‘contributions to campus journalism’.

complete with sparkly present

If he looks a little bemused, it’s because he was — journalism, really? It’s the same award his brother won back in his day. Hey, I think it’s cool, whatever it’s for. I’ve never, ever gotten an award (unlike my dual personality).

So that’s about it. I know this post is wildly late, but I have a new computer and Windows 8 is a beast I’m struggling to master. Technological delays abounded. Hopefully, next week’s post will be on time and trouble-free. In the meantime, listen to some mournful fiddle music and think about how blessed we are not to have to do our laundry by beating it against rocks in a freezing stream (see, I do try to look on the bright side of things).

2 Comments