dual personalities

June 6, 2024

Trusting in the name of the Lord

by chuckofish

All the flowers have been blooming ahead of schedule this spring–now the day lilies are going strong!

Don’s flowers are amazing!

I am happy to have his photos to share because I am feeling too crummy to go outside and take pictures of my own. Yes, another cold with painful sinuses. What is with this? I am not amused.

Anyway, I wanted to remind everyone that, of course, today is June 6th and that means the 80th anniversary of D-Day! Lest we forget, D-Day was the name given to the June 6, 1944, invasion of the beaches at Normandy in northern France by troops from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom during World War II. France at the time was occupied by the armies of Nazi Germany, and the amphibious assault—codenamed Operation Overlord—landed some 156,000 Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy by the end of the day.

So a toast to those brave men who stormed the beaches–including Robert Montgomery, Yogi Berra, James Doohan, Charles Durning, David Niven, Alec Guinness, Richard Todd (parachuting from a plane), and, of course, J.D. Salinger. John Ford was also there, leading a team of US Coast Guard cameramen in filming a documentary on D-Day for the Navy. I like to think of my friend Herschel, who also parachuted from a plane and lived to return to flyover country and lead his mild-mannered life. I only knew about his involvement in D-Day when I read it in his obituary.

I’m going to watch The Longest Day (1962) tonight but it will probably take me three nights to see the whole thing.

(Red Buttons in the Herschel A. part.)

Lest we forget.

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
    he will answer him from his holy heaven
    with the saving might of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall,
    but we rise and stand upright.

–Psalm 20:6-8

4 Comments
June 5, 2024

Mid-week musings

by chuckofish

Today we toast the American writer Stephen Crane, who died on this day in 1900 at the age of 28. He wrote poetry and short stories and the famous war novel The Red Badge of Courage.

A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army’s feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

John Huston made a movie adaption of the novel in 1951 starring Audie Murphy. Although I know a man who just thinks it is the best movie ever, I find that hard to believe, given the star and the director, but I should see it before I judge. I should also read the book again, which I may have read in high school, but I do not remember it clearly. The Civil War scene in How the West Was Won (1962) where George Peppard drinks from the bloody river with the confederate deserter is derivative I’m sure. Anyway, I’ll add that to my list.

Willa Cather wrote this lovely piece –When I Knew Stephen Crane–and sums him up brilliantly. She was a college girl when she was acquainted with him briefly in Lincoln, Nebraska and he opened up to her on a memorable evening.

Men will sometimes reveal themselves to children, or to people whom they think never to see again, more completely than they ever do to their confreres. From the wise we hold back alike our folly and our wisdom, and for the recipients of our deeper confidences we seldom select our equals. The soul has no message for the friends with whom we dine every week. It is silenced by custom and convention, and we play only in the shallows. It selects its listeners willfully, and seemingly delights to waste its best upon the chance wayfarer who meets us in the highway at a fated hour. There are moments too, when the tides run high or very low, when self-revelation is necessary to every man, if it be only to his valet or his gardener. At such a moment, I was with Mr. Crane.

I will also note that Stagecoach (1939) is on TCM tonight. It is always a good time to watch this movie, which is one of the best 96 minutes ever put on film. Stagecoach was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture; Thomas Mitchell received an Academy Award for his supporting role as “Doc Boone,” and Richard Hageman, Franke Harling, John Leipold and Leo Shuken received an Academy Award for their score. Stagecoach also made the National Board of Review’s ten best list, and John Ford was honored as best director of 1939 by the New York Film Critics. It catapulted the western genre into the A-film realm. (And, of course, the stunts are out of this world.)

Here’s Viggo Mortensen’s take on Stagecoach:

So read an old book, watch an old movie (again) and praise God from whom all blessings flow!

(The photo is Stephen Crane in Corwin Knapp Linson’s studio on West 22nd Street, Manhattan, c. 1894, when Crane was writing The Red Badge of Courage.)(Syracuse University Libraries via Roger Williams University)

3 Comments
June 4, 2024

“the wonderfulness of insects in the air”*

by chuckofish

Like baby Ida, it is taking me some time to recover from my busy weekend.

This week I will be catching up on a lot of things and working on an article for the Kirkwood Review. Besides the usual laundry and tidying up, I have quite a bit of Bible reading to catch up on. In my chronological Bible I am still in I Kings/I Chronicles and Psalms. I can’t help chuckling that I am such a movie nerd that when I read the verses Psalm 46: 10-11, I heard the voices of the Colour Sergeant and the missionary in a famous scene from Zulu (1964)!

I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

I’m sure some of you can relate.

Here’s a good reminder that you do not need to be perfect for God to use you. And as the line from my favorite hymn says, “if you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all.”

And by the way, I volunteered to do VBS again this year, so I am preparing myself mentally for some good times to come in two weeks.

Onward and upward.

*I’m trying to appreciate this along with Walt Whitman (Miracles)–as our cicada invasion continues…

5 Comments
June 3, 2024

Postcards from the Land o’ Lincoln

by chuckofish

Well, the whole family converged on Champaign County to celebrate sweet Katie’s 4th birthday. It was quite a gala event. It would have been nice if it hadn’t rained all day on Saturday, but we count it all joy and DN managed to grill!

The birthday girl was delighted with her presents and with her cousins who are more fun than a veritable barrel of monkeys.

We will all, no doubt, need a few days to recover.

We gave Katie the Little Tikes Cape Cottage Playhouse and she was quite taken with it. It will move outside but the kids were entertained in it for hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon after DN was kind enough to put it together. (And he did it without swearing once!)

Lottie drew a picture of the girls excluding the bud from the house–girls only! (Some things never change, do they?)

That didn’t last long.

We took very few pictures of any grown ups but we were all there. Quite a treat!

God bless America!

4 Comments
May 30, 2024

On the road again.

by chuckofish

Well, we made it to Friday. It was a short week, made even shorter by taking Friday off. That’s right, the whole St. Louis fam crew is road tripping to Illinois to celebrate a certain four-year-old’s birthday. Thankfully, I wrapped the presents on Monday night and hopefully, I won’t forget to load them into the car.

This sweet, sleepy pup is headed to the kennel for two plus days of what I’m sure he considers more fun than home life. Ideally, he will come home very tired and want to cuddle with me while I have the Sunday Scaries.

We have had the most ideal weather this week–upper seventies, minimal humidity, sunshine. And the Southern Magnolias in my neighborhood are blooming. Our ear drums maybe bursting from the loud cicadas, but our walks have smelled delightful.

Well, I’ll leave with this short post. I’ve got to pack (oops) and this way, you can look forward to a fun update from my mother on Monday. Pray for our safe travels. xo.

2 Comments
May 30, 2024

This and that, here and there

by chuckofish

Today marks the 113th anniversary of the first Indianapolis 500 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Ray Harmon was the first winner of the 500-mile auto race in his Marmon Wasp.

I will toast Harmon and his Wasp with an orange soda and the wee bud, who, as you know, loves all things with four wheels and a motor.

It is also the birthday of film director Howard Hawks, born in 1898 in Goshen, Indiana. I appreciate him more and more as the years go by. As Orson Welles once said in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, “Hawks is great prose; [John] Ford is poetry.” I think that is a good assessment. Anyway, I will watch one of his many great movies tonight. Maybe Air Force (1943) since I have been on a WWII kick since Memorial Day.

Meanwhile the new Longmire book arrived on Tuesday and I am happily catching up with Walt and Henry…

Katie and Ida are hanging out on the deck…

…and the bud is playing it cool on the driveway…

And Anne hits the nail on the head several times in this one.

Here’s to the last day of school! Hang in there! God is in control!

3 Comments
May 29, 2024

In the twinkling of an eye

by chuckofish

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

–I Corinthians 15:52-53

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a lady in my Bible Study class. She was quite a gal who had lived a long and meaningful life. She was a teacher, a missionary, a college professor, and an author. By all accounts she was ready to meet her maker. Anyway, it was the first funeral I had attended at my new church and I was not disappointed.

We sang four hymns enthusiastically, con brio.

Her three adult children read various things. One read the Heidelberg Catechism Q & A #1:

QUESTION:

What is your only comfort in life and death?

ANSWER:

That I am not my own, 1 but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, 2 to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. 3 He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, 4 and has set me free from all the power of the devil. 5 He also preserves me in such a way 6 that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; 7 indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. 8 Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life 9 and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him. 

One read part of her mother’s testimony and one read from C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. A soloist sang Handel’s I Know That My Redeemer Liveth. The Senior Pastor preached on Romans 8:18-25.

I might have added one or two more scripture readings, but I thought it was pretty close to perfect as is. No pomp, no circumstance. No smells and bells. Just the community faithful gathering at the proverbial river.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

5 Comments
May 28, 2024

Till the ductile anchor hold

by chuckofish

Yesterday, of course, was a beautiful sunny day with nary a cloud in the sky. We had no plans other than cleaning up from the day before. C’est la vie.

Yesterday was also the birthday of Walt Whitman, so I read some poetry.

And here’s Bob Dylan’s hat tip to W.W.:

Have a good (short) week!

4 Comments
May 27, 2024

The chalice of courage

by chuckofish

I have been thinking about Gen. Douglas MacArthur and listened once again to his farewell speech to West Point, arguably one of the best speeches of the 20th Century.

In twenty campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his status in the hearts of his people. From one end of the world to the other he has drained deep the chalice of courage.

Let’s all take a few moments to think about that patriotic self-abnegation and the men (and women) who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country.

(Here’s a photo of my grandfather on the right with his younger brother who was killed in the Argonne Forest in 1918.)

If you have half an hour, listen to the speech.

As I have said before, Memorial Day is not just an excuse to have a day off and barbecue with family and friends–although we did that yesterday.

There was no mention of Memorial Day at our church which I found interesting but not really surprising. It was just a regular service and two of the four hymns made me cry like a baby. I was a mess. C’est la vie. Our new young pastor finished the Letter to Titus in his sermon and he was on fire, which was pretty impressive considering it was Titus. But that goes to show that any scripture is worthy of our study and exegesis.

In the afternoon the boy and his family, daughter #1 and her friend Liz and her husband and kids gathered with us for family fun and frolic. We started off outside…

…but we had to move inside when it started to thunder and rain. Our twins showed their twins how to have fun at Mamu’s house…

The menfolk had to move the barbecue into the garage, and by the time we were almost ready to sit down to eat, the tornado sirens were blaring, the wind was blowing and the air had turned that green color we know so well. I went to check what was going on outside and Lottie was like, “Mamu, what are you DOING?!” (She was all for heading to the basement immediately.) I said, “Oh it’s nothing to worry about!” and daughter #3 agreed, “If it starts to hail, we’ll reconsider.”

In no time Lottie had the little ones set up with pillows under the dining room table…

As we sat down to eat (at the table), it started to hail. But the hail was only dime-sized, so we went on and ate our dinner.

All’s well that ends well. That’s life in flyover country.

This is a moving tribute about Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National Cemetery. Lest we forget.

Meanwhile, tonight I’ll be watching They Were Expendable (1945) which has become my Memorial Day tradition.

This is just a great movie. Great action scenes and the romance between Donna Reed and John Wayne is one of the sweetest in cinema history. And General MacArthur makes an appearance.

“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

–President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863

2 Comments
May 24, 2024

“Ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody”*

by chuckofish

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan! He turns 83 today. We love you and God loves you.

It is time to plan a visit to the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK…however, I guess I’ll wait until the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, which is still closed for construction, reopens. Then it will be Tulsa Time!

In case you need reminding, Sunday is John Wayne’s birthday. He would be 117. If you are in Fort Worth, be sure to sign up for…

I will be home streaming my own John Wayne film festival.

Nobody slams a door like John Wayne.

How will you be celebrating?

P.S. Saturday is the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I disagree with him about quite a few things, but I agree with this:

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

–RWE, Collected Poems

Now there’s three aces!

*Bob Dylan

But I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody
Not today, not tonight, not tomorrow, no never, no way!

3 Comments