Today we remember actress Claire Trevor, who was born on this day in 1910.
Claire wasn’t your standard Hollywood beauty, and maybe because of that, she always brought something special to each of her roles. She appeared in 65 feature films from 1933 to 1982, winning an Oscar for her supporting role in Key Largo (1948) as a washed-up lounge singer. She received nominations for her roles in The High and the Mighty (1954) and Dead End (1938) and top billing ahead of John Wayne in Stagecoach (1939). Other stand-out performances include: Alleghany Uprising (1938), Murder My Sweet (1944), and hold the phone, she appeared on an episode of Murder She Wrote in 1987!
All of these movies are well worth watching tonight. We might try to find Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) which also stars Cyd Charisse who shared March 8th as her birthday.
Or maybe not. I think I’ll stick with one of my faves.
In other news, this sounds like a great new album. You can scroll down in the link and listen to Rosanne Cash’s rendition of Doc Watson’s classic “I am a Pilgrim”.
I am a pilgrim and a stranger
Traveling through this wearisome land
And I've got a home in that yonder city, good Lord
And it's not, not made by hand
--Roger Miller
So have a good day! Watch a Claire Trevor movie. Listen to some good music. Check out the daffodils which are insane this year–at least in my neck of the woods. And, hey, are the Forsythia bushes starting to pop?
I have been reading about Marianne Moore, the eminent 20th century American poet, who was born in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1887. In the introduction to her Pulitzer Prize winner, Collected Poems, T.S. Eliot, another St. Louisan, said: “My conviction has remained unchanged for the last 14 years that Miss Moore’s poems form part of the small body of durable poetry written in our time…”
I love this thing she said in an interview with Donald Hall for the Paris Review in 1960 when he asked her, since she and Eliot were both born in St. Louis around the same time, if their families knew each other:
No, we did not know the Eliots. We lived in Kirkwood, Missouri, where my grandfather was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. T.S. Eliot’s grandfather–Dr. William Eliot–was a Unitarian…My grandfather, like Dr. Eliot, had attended ministerial meetings in St. Louis. Also, at stated intervals, various ministers met for luncheon. After one of these luncheons my grandfather said, “When Dr. William Eliot asks the blessing and says, ‘and this we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ he is Trinitarian enough for me.’
Isn’t that great?
A lifelong Presbyterian, she was also, FYI, a Republican! She’d be canceled for that today. Well, she didn’t take herself too seriously even back then.
It rained cats and dogs for about 18 hours on Friday here in flyover country. Thank goodness it wasn’t snow. I went to my biannual cancer checkup on Friday and had my annual infusion of bone medicine. Always nice to get that over with.
But we had a nice weekend with temps in the 60s. On Saturday daughter #1 and I drove over to Jeff City to check on things there and water her plants. We went to Walmart and bought some bins and made an initial swipe at packing things up. There is a lot to pack.
It was a lovely day to drive through the rolling hills of Osage and Gasconade Counties in mid-MO. I am always up for that. When we got home the OM took us to Hacienda for dinner and Margs.
On Sunday we picked up the twins again and took them to church where they earned an A- on Mamu’s depravity scale for keeping theirs in check. We brought them to our house afterwards so they could play with Mr. Smith. Daughter #3 joined us for bagels. Sadly, the boy was working (of course) and so no pictures were taken.
He did send pictures of a long story the wee bud wrote about a tornado. Here’s a sample:
He’s in kindergarten! I was impressed.
Meanwhile in Maryland, Katiebelle and Idabelle had a visitor. Their Mom’s oldest friend, whom she met in vacation bible school when she was six, came to visit.
They had a super fun time…eating donuts and introducing Julia to Pete the Cat.
Now it is Monday. Have a good one.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
praise him all creatures here below;
praise him above, ye heavenly host;
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
–Thomas Ken, 1709
And here’s a bonus treat: before he became a country music superstar Chris Stapleton was in a bluegrass band…
“Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and levity and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself.”
March has entered like the proverbial lamb, but I’m not taking the down blanket off my bed just yet. I know we will experience another hard freeze sometime in the next few weeks. Just you wait and see.
And while we’re waiting and seeing, did you hear that a bear escaped its enclosure for the second time at the St. Louis Zoom? I mean, come on, who is running the zoo these days? Are all the keepers smoking pot while on duty? Now we are having lockdowns at the zoo? Zut alors–I am not amused.
In honor of famed film producer Walter Mirisch, who died last week at 101, I suggest we watch one of his movies, which include: Some Like It Hot (1959), The Horse Soldiers (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Pink Panther (1963), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967) The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Same Time, Next Year (1978). As Elmore Leonard characterized him, Mirisch “was one of the good guys.” I read his memoir, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History, and I have to agree with Leonard, although, as I said at the time, it is always amazing to me how smart guys can make some really dumb decisions. But he made a lot of good movies and was, for the most part, a gentleman.
Here are six movies to celebrate NASCAR’s 75th anniversary. I am not particularly a fan of this film genre, but the wee bud is a huge NASCAR fan and of cars in general. When we were driving to church the other Sunday through our new cut-through, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the sight of an orange Charger in a driveway. It is his “favorite street” now.
This month is also the “31 Days of Oscar” month on TCM, so there are a lot of good movies to see. Check out their schedule here. We watched The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) last night. Mr. Smith was riveted. (Best. Movie. Ever.)
This is a good one from Sam Bush. “Many contemporary children’s books are fixated on an end-goal (whether it’s encouraging your child to use the potty or challenge the patriarchy), but the classics refrain from telling a person what to think.”
I appreciated this article by an American medical doctor about insufferable patients. He even references Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It is also interesting in light of the horrific state of medicine in Canada and their suicide on demand policy. “We stopped speaking in terms of her merit – as a vagabond who deserved her state and did not deserve our medicine. But this took explicitly naming all I’ve said above, interrogating it candidly in community, repenting over what we had said, disrupting the momentum of morning rounds to point toward a different way of treating and speaking about the insufferable. Amy forced us to ask crucial questions we should have been asking long before: What are we doing here again? Who are we becoming? What is medicine for … and who is medicine for?”
Blessings upon you, readers. Take a walk, pat a dog, read a poem. Maybe one by that scoundrel Roald Dahl:
‘My teacher wasn’t half as nice as yours seems to be. His name was Mister Unsworth and he taught us history. And when you didn’t know a date he’d get you by the ear And start to twist while you sat there quite paralysed with fear. He’d twist and twist and twist your ear and twist it more and more. Until at last the ear came off and landed on the floor. Our class was full of one-eared boys. I’m certain there were eight. Who’d had them twisted off because they didn’t know a date. So let us now praise teachers who today are all so fine And yours in particular is totally divine.’
Well, my mother and I watched the all female Ghostbusters (2016) last night. I enjoyed it when it came out and it amused me again. What can I say, Leslie Jones makes me laugh. And Chris Hemsworth does have a certain Clark Kent vibe.
Anyway, you all are here to hear about my trip. I had a wonderful time in Maryland visiting Daughter #2 and her sweet fam. I started the trip right by ordering sparkling wine and orange juice on my 7 a.m. flight. The man next to me was real jealous he did not have the same idea.
I played with puzzles and Magna-Tiles. Read lots of books. Did some baby holding. No Duplos on this visit, but what can I say? Nate did make margaritas.
I received the honor of my lifetime by being asked to sit on the bench with Katie at breakfast. I’ve peaked.
Mamu sent Katie a new dress with a matching purse, which we knew she’d love. And she did. It held small books and coasters perfectly. Life is good, am I right?
Katie is such a good big sister and loves to help her mommy gently burp Baby Ida.
It’s always a treat to spend time with my sister, Nate, and their precious children. We also drank large Diet Cokes and wine and stayed up late gabbing.
Also while I was gone Mr. Smith learned how to jump up onto the couch from the floor which is basically the dog equivalent of a baby learning how to walk, so strides are being made all around.
It is the last day of February and spring is in the air. Daughter #1 made it back to town and Mr. Smith was very happy. She’ll tell you all about her exciting visit with daughter #2 tomorrow.
In the meantime I have a few links.
This is a very interesting article about how there’s a “hole at its heart” in Oberammergau’s famous Passion play these days. Why am I not surprised?
There is only one way to avoid climbing a mountain and finding it is actually a doomed precipice over which you will certainly fall by your own power if you don’t ask someone—God—for help. And that is not to climb at all, but rather to begin by falling down. I love the way the psalmist [#137] put it this morning:
Well, of course, I had a really lovely time at my Big Event on Friday. I cut the ribbon on a newly renovated room named after me with a pair of hand-crafted wooden scissors which I now have in my office at home.
My former boss, the Dean Emeritus, said kind words about me and I was able to make some extemporaneous remarks without making a fool of myself. I even gave a little testimony about reading through the Bible under the heading “What I’ve been doing since I retired”. I read a poem. There was punch and cookies and I was hugged by a lot of people. Time well spent. God is good.
And in answer to the question, “What did you wear?”–I went full Eileen Fisher–i.e. old work clothes. And I got a corsage.
I spent the rest of the weekend recovering. I did make it to the Kirkwood Historical Society’s Black Heritage event on Saturday at Mudd’s Grove where I met some interesting people and reacquainted myself with a few others. And I got an idea for a Kirkwood Review article about Kirkwood’s own Tuskegee Airman.
The OM and I picked up the twins for church–The boy is still working seven days a week at his store–and I gave them a B+ for depravity control. Pappy was an usher so he was able to distance himself from them, that is until he went up to start passing the plate for the offering and the twins waved vigorously and stage-whispered “Pappy!” to get his attention. Soli deo gloria.
Meanwhile daughter #1 has been hanging out with daughter #2 and her petite famille in Silver Spring.
(That baby is growin’!)
If all goes according to plan and the creek don’t rise, she’ll return home later today. Mr. Smith will be so happy.
Blessed Lord, who wast tempted in all things like as we are, have mercy upon our frailty. Out of weakness give us strength; grant to us thy fear, that we may fear thee only; support us in time of temptation; embolden us in time of danger; help us to do thy work with good courage, and to continue thy faithful soldiers and servants unto our life’s end.
Daughter #1 here, trying to find time to write a blog on a new day. The past few weeks have been very busy, but still nowhere to live. The housing market continues to be crazytown for those of us who are still a million bucks shy of being a millionaire. Sigh. Anyway, last Friday, Mr. Smith went to the spa to get a bath and a blowout and his nails done. I was a wee bit jealous. Until I realized the dog spa is practically across the street from La Hacienda–which could only mean one thing. Happy hour margaritas!
Here’s a before picture.
And here’s an after.
Mr. Smith is always so nice and clean after a bath. But since they blow dried his fur with a round brush, his face looks more like a Westie now. To quote Katie, “Mr. Smith is growin’ up!”
I am off to visit Baby Ida and her sweet family today. So prayers for my safe and smooth travels. And prayers for my parents who are watching Mr. Smith while I’m gone. I offered to board him, but they insisted! I know they’re big fans-hopefully that will still be true when I get back!
Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes.
–William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale (1610–11) act 4, sc. 3, l. 121
Yes, the big storm missed us. It just rained and then the sun came out. No big deal.
Tomorrow I do have a Big Deal–an Event to attend back at my flyover university. It is the kind that makes me very nervous, so pray for me. People always think I am so calm, cool and collected, but little do they know. I will be inwardly reciting my mantra: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and of love and of self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
Plus, I don’t even know what I’m wearing.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
dual personalities 