I hope you are enjoying beautiful fall weather. I have brought out my turtlenecks and sweaters–at long last–and am enjoying the cooler temps before actually turning on the heat.
Meanwhile, things are looking spooky over at the twins’ house.
And the prairie girls made lion masks…
They roared their terrible roars.
I guess Halloween is just around the corner!
And really, the nerve of some bears…
It’s October! Zut alors! Last year at this time I was in beautiful Monument Valley with the OM and daughter #1.
Guess I’ll watch The Searchers (1956) this week…
Well, we must “live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” Who said that? Yes, of course, it was Thoreau in “Walden, or, Life in the Woods”.
Earlier in September, we were told by the Missouri Department of Conservation to be “bear aware” when hiking in the woods. So just as a reminder, here is where bears have been sighted in Missouri since 2020:
Yikes! Take care with those bird feeders and barbecues!
Here are Nine Hymn Lyrics You’ve Probably Misunderstood. We sing all these hymns in church. The author suggests that “something that was written 500 years ago can be confusing to a modern audience,” and maybe that is so. If so, “you can learn to sing these words with renewed faith as you come to better understand what they mean!”
And here’s a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke about Autumn:
It’s still very hot here–but it is not officially Fall until next week on September 22–the Autumnal Equinox–so what are we all complaining about?
I went in for my semi-annual cancer check yesterday, which is always stressful, but I got through it by leaning on the everlasting arms.
This made me smile:
And finally…
Hang in there!
The sun is out and the yard is cleaned up. One set of storms is behind us. But we are still feeling a bit disheveled.
Over the weekend we went to an estate sale in South County where the owners had been greatobsessive collectors. The wife collected dolls, which brings to mind those scary houses where the rooms are filled with those dolls you used to see ads for in women’s magazines–
but these were nice dolls from foreign countries and she had quite a good collection. I have a similar (much smaller) collection which is in the doll case at daughter #1’s house. We had fun looking at this huge collection which was housed in a lighted, built-in case, but did not consider actually buying any of the dolls. Until we saw these two:
Handmade in England, back in the 1950s (?), they are beautiful. They remind me of the huge collection of dolls which was on permanent display at the school I went to growing up. I’m sure they are from the same source. Anyway, I knew no one would want them, so I rescued them–for a song (minus Lamar’s generous discount). I’m not sure where I will put them, but for now they are safe at my house.
Oh, people and their collections! I do not really understand them. It takes a certain kind of addictive personality to really go all out; we see it not infrequently when estate-sale-ing. It is a good thing to remember that you can’t take it with you, and unless your children share your obsession, it will all end up in an estate sale. (Or else in the Saint Louis Art Museum if you are Morton May.)
Collecting is a curious art,
From treasures in a chest.
The value of what’s gathered there
Is in the one who’s blest.”
–Emily Dickinson
This was interesting: 100 years ago, on March 18, 1925, nearly 700 people died as a massive tornado raced across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana for several hours. Unlike most tornado outbreaks, this was a single, long-tracked twister, ripping primarily through southern Missouri and Illinois. Yikes!
From the I-don’t-ever-want-to-hear-the-word-‘misinformation’-ever-again department, here’s Anne on kooks and cranks, the MSM and the NYT: “For sure it backfired. But still, see, you’re still being judgemental, and you’re not in a position to do that. You can’t judge other people’s motives until you yourself have come clean. You weren’t right on the merits, and other people were, whom you shut down. Until you, the New York Times, breaks down and says sorry, there won’t be any possibility of institutions being rebuilt in a trustworthy manner.”
And as someone noted, due to park ranger cutbacks by DOGE, bears are now tasked with fixing fallen cones…
Have a good day!
*Ogden Nash
Well, I have finally caught up with my daily Bible reading schedule. Amen. And it has been a pleasure to be in Isaiah, which is always timely.
“Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is my law;
fear not the reproach of man,
nor be dismayed at their revilings.
8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool,
but my righteousness will be forever,
and my salvation to all generations.”(Isaiah 51:7-9)
Here’s Sinclair Ferguson on the Gospel according to Isaiah.
Speaking of revilings, this is a good one by Carl Trueman about our anti-culture of nothingness.
And for some comic relief, Black Bears really are becoming cartoon characters in real life. (Be sure to check out the photos of the wrecked car.)
Cheer up–don’t let the turkeys get you down!
*Isaiah 55:12; the painting is by Eugène Boudin (1824-1898)–Trouville Beach, 1865
DN is re-reading Moby-Dick and, reading this about Ahab in the chapter about dining at the captain’s table, he thought I’d like the reference to bears in Missouri:
“Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!”
Of course, I did.
(I also love that phrase, “nominally included in the census of Christendom”.)
Have a good weekend–re-read something good, watch out for bears!
(Photo–St. Louis Public Radio)
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.’
*A.E. Housman, 1859-1936, “March”
My oldest granddaughter Lottie and I have a little joke about bears.
Whenever the adult conversation at the dinner table gets away from her, she says, “Guys! Guys! Does anyone have a story about bears?” This is hilarious because everyone knows Mamu is afraid of bears. This fear was exacerbated by the time a bear sauntered through our town a few blocks away our house. Now the joke is that a bear will be enticed by the smell of Pappy’s barbecue and will attack him in our backyard.
Anyway, on Sunday I did, indeed, have a story. It was about a bear hibernating under someone’s deck, which I had heard about when I was in Maryland. Lottie’s reaction was to say, “Why would a bear want to hibernate under a deck?” 🙄
Usually Lottie moves on to asking, “Does anyone have a story about scary animals?” On Sunday I had one such story. It seems a gruesome attack by a great white shark last week resulted in a Mexican diver being decapitated. 😲 That was a little too scary for Lottie and she retreated to her father’s arms. I hope she didn’t have nightmares.
I don’t want to give my grandchildren complexes, but a healthy respect for the dangers of the wild is a good thing.
Life is not a Richard Scarry children’s book, much as we would like it to be.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
-Isaiah 11:6
*Maurice Sendak
How was your weekend? Mine was pleasantly eventful. I took Friday afternoon off and had lunch with my pals, sitting outside–such a treat. Then daughter #1 came home and we sat outside at Club Taco, nursing a margarita and listening to the musical stylings of “Dusty Rhodes.” (Like him, but not him.) Then we made our way home and the OM provided dinner while we listened to more music.
On Saturday we went to lunch for the first time in ages (sitting inside) at the Sappington House. We moved on to the South County Antique Mall–50,000 square feet of “unique items”–where we walked up and down many miles of booths perusing the vintage junk. We headed home empty-handed to get ready for the wee babes and their parents who came over for a barbecue. Unfortunately, the day was rainy and cold, so we had to be indoors the whole time. Several mishaps ensued, but we had fun and nothing (and nobody) got broken.
I received many lovely and thoughtful gifts from my children, including these beautiful flowers from daughter #2:
But of course what warmed the cockles of this grandma’s heart was reading the “All About My Grandma” questionnaires that the twins had filled out. I was glad to know that Lottie thinks I am 200 years old and that she loves her grandma because “She is beautiful.” The wee laddie, on the other hand, loves me because I “do nothing.” Precious moments.
There was cake too!
In other news, there was a Black Bear sighting in Kirkwood on the grounds of Ursuline Academy which is a stone’s throw from our house! It moved on to Webster Hills Methodist Church where we buy pumpkins. I mean really. I do not need bears in my backyard. First armadillos, now bears. What is happening? (Update: the bear moved on to Brentwood and was tranquilized in a tree.)
Happy Monday! Keep an eye out for bears!
*WRC jr (having eaten a lot of cake)
Today is the birthday of Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809).
You probably know that he was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and is best known as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
He was the one played by Fred MacMurray in the movie The Far Horizons (1955). Charlton Heston played Clark. All very impressive. But did you know that he had a near-death experience with a grizzly bear? Well, he did.
On their famous expedition, Lewis and Clark and their men had several hair-raising encounters with bears. After awhile Lewis began referring to the bears respectfully as “gentlemen.” On June 14, 1905 Lewis had his own encounter with a grizzly on the Yellowstone River.
He had just shot a buffalo and was watching it die when he realized that a grizzly had crept up on him “within 20 steps.” He described the encounter: “I drew up my gun to shoot, but at the same instant recolected that she was not loaded…it was an open level plain, not a bush within miles…I had no sooner terned myself about but he pitched at me, open mouthed and full speed, I ran about 80 yards and found he gained on me fast, I then ran into the water…about waist deep, and faced about and presented the point of my espontoon, at this instant…he sudonly wheeled about as if frightened, declined the combat on such unequal grounds, and retreated.” Shaken, Lewis waded out of the river, speculating on the bear’s motivation for sparing him. He concluded that its reasons were “misterious and unaccountable.”**
I say old Meriwether Lewis deserves a birthday toast tonight. At the very least. But while I’m at it, I think he deserves a better monument.
This “national monument” in Hohenwald, TN (where he died/was murdered/committed suicide) does not seem to be quite enough somehow. What is the cylinder thing anyway? It looks like a smokestack.
I should think they could have done better in 1848.
*Isaac Newton
**Lewis and Clark Across the Divide by Carolyn Gillman
dual personalities 