It has been 22 years since the belle, daughter #2, was born (almost three weeks early!) on Holy Saturday. Happy Birthday, darling girl (one day early)!
Here’s hoping we can meet at Ted Drewe’s for a birthday mini mocha!
Today we take note of the birthday of our pater familias, who would be 90 today.
Wind on the Hill
by A.A. MilneNo one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.It’s flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn’t keep up with it,
Not if I ran.But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes…
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.
The Butterfly House is a “butterfly zoo” operated by the Missouri Botanical Garden in far West County. Its mission is to “increase awareness of the natural habitat in which butterflies thrive.” It is full of butterflies and orchids and other exotic flora, not to mention people looking at all this.
March is Blue Morpho month at the Butterfly House, and if you like BIG blue butterflies, the Butterfly House is the place to be. Truth be told, I am not that into butterflies, but last Saturday, my best Grace girlfriends took another birthday field trip–this time to the Butterfly House. Here’s what we saw:
And the best for last (our birthday girl):
One last word: “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
Yesterday, February 26, was the birthday of the late, great Johnny Cash (1932–2003). Johnny and I go way back. I saw him on television singing his hit Don’t Take Your Guns to Town when I was 3 or 4 and I was hooked. Uncharacteristically, my mother bought the single. I like to think it was at my prompting, but my older brother probably had something to do with it. Johnny was just so great and his talent so magnetic that even a three-year-old could sense it. He was to singing what John Wayne was to acting, except he had a jagged, dangerous edge. He was, after all, “the Man in Black”.
He wrote so many great songs: Understand Your Man, I Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, Folsom Prison Blues, and the list goes on and on. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1980), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992). Only thirteen performers are in both of the last two, and only Hank Williams Sr., Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, and Bill Monroe share the honor with Cash of being in all three.
He also had a television show, wrote books, was a faithful Christian, and was friends with Bob Dylan. I never saw Johnny Cash in concert–it is one of my great regrets. Here is Johnny’s last video–a heart-breaking rendition of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.
I always thought that Johnny and my mother had the same eyes of plaintive Scottish brown. (Apologies to J.D. Salinger)
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on this date in 1882. Fifty-nine years later she waded into the River Ouse, her pockets filled with stones, and drowned on March 28, 1941. The author of many essays and well-known novels, she also wrote one of the great suicide notes of all time:
Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier ’til this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V
Really, don’t you think so? I am not being glib. You have to hand it to Virginia–she really did not want Leonard to feel guilty about what she was doing. And she must have felt that she had no choice. This makes me want to watch The Hours with Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep and Ed Harris wearing the rocket ship bathrobe from Garnet Hill.
January 19 is my mother’s birthday. It is also Dolly Parton’s. As I’ve mentioned before, it is also Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s birthday. Talk about synchronicity! My mother would be 86; she died in 1988. Dolly is 66. Buffy, being a fictional character, never ages.
On the Episcopal Church calendar of saints it is the feast day of St. Wulfstan (c. 1008 – 20 January 1095), Bishop of Worcester. He was the last surviving pre-Conquest bishop and the only English-born bishop after 1075. Oh boy.
But today we recognize those latter day saints, Mary and Dolly.
My mother's the squirmy one on the right
My mother was born and raised in Worcester, MA. She was a happy child who knocked her teeth back in her head while sledding, so enthusiastic was the abandonment with which she threw herself down the hill. She wore braces (at age 3) to correct her teeth. She was the opposite of me as a child. I was timid where she was gregarious and daring. Her stories of her childhood frequently scared me. Especially the one about the great New England hurricane of 1938–when they ran out in the street to see the destruction! And then, of course, she skied the Headwall on Mt. Washington at Tuckerman’s Ravine while a college girl at Middlebury. She was fearless.
But life can change you. Things happen. You get married and have three kids.You move away from home and your family. You live among strangers. Despite her challenges, my mother was a great mother. She taught me that you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. She taught me to keep it simple. She taught me that antiques should be lived with, not kept behind a silk rope. She taught me that Shane and Ninotchka and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Quiet Man and The Adventures of Robin Hood are great movies and that Errol Flynn was the epitome of handsomeness. She defended Elvis. She tried to teach me and my sister the importance of ladylike behavior at all times. She hated vulgarity. She taught me that you have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. She taught me the importance of being spontaneous and that parties should always have favors. She taught me that you could never have enough bookshelves and that there is always money for books.
And then there’s Dolly. Dolly Rebecca Parton as you well know, is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, who is best known for her work in country music. Dolly was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee Parton and Avie Lee Parton. She is clearly a multi-talented person, but her song-writing is where she really shines. Indeed, she has written over 3,000 songs and has earned over 35 BMI Pop and Country Awards throughout her prolific songwriting career. In 2001 she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She was honored as a BMI Icon at the 2003 BMI Country Awards. Yes, she is an icon.
A lot of people don’t know that since she hit it big, Dolly Parton has supported many charitable efforts, particularly in the area of literacy, primarily through her Dollywood Foundation. Her literacy program, “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library”, a part of the Dollywood Foundation, mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. It began in Sevier County but has now been replicated in 566 counties across 36 U.S. states (as well as in Canada). In December 2007 it expanded to Europe with the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham, United Kingdom, being the first British locality to receive the books. The program distributes more than 2.5 million free books to children annually. Is this awesome or what?
And her Dollywood theme park has brought jobs and tax revenues to a previously depressed region. She has probably done more to help people live respectable lives in Tennessee than anyone else. Dolly never just played lip service to where she came from. She has spread her wealth around from the very beginning. I have always thought she should run for Governor. She would be a great one. She is clearly a great role-model for all young women. That is why I encouraged daughter #2 to choose Dolly as her 6th grade Reach project. Here she is in costume holding her shoe box Grand Ole Opry for her (1st place) presentation:
Unfortunately her platform sandals are not visible.
She has written so many great songs, but Coat of Many Colors is my favorite. (Dolly has also described it as her favorite of all the songs she’s ever written.) In my humble opinion it is one of the best songs ever written by an American, right up there with those greats written by Stephen Foster, Rogers & Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Bob Dylan and all the rest. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Hearing it sung by Dolly is a real emotional experience!
Back through the years
I go wonderin’ once again
Back to the seasons of my youth
I recall a box of rags that someone gave us
And how my momma put the rags to use
There were rags of many colors
Every piece was small
And I didn’t have a coat
And it was way down in the fall
Momma sewed the rags together
Sewin’ every piece with love
She made my coat of many colors
That I was so proud of
As she sewed, she told a story
From the bible, she had read
About a coat of many colors
Joseph wore and then she said
Perhaps this coat will bring you
Good luck and happiness
And I just couldn’t wait to wear it
And momma blessed it with a kiss
Chorus:
My coat of many colors
That my momma made for me
Made only from rags
But I wore it so proudly
Although we had no money
I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
So with patches on my britches
Holes in both my shoes
In my coat of many colors
I hurried off to school
Just to find the others laughing
And making fun of me
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
And oh I couldn’t understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told them of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
And I told ‘em all the story
Momma told me while she sewed
And how my coat of many colors
Was worth more than all their clothes
But they didn’t understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Made just for me
So happy birthday, Mary and Dolly…and Buffy! You’re the best!
Can you guess which one is our birthday girl circa 1970? Hint: she’s in the first row…uh huh.
Yesterday the boy turned 25. A quarter century. I gave him this:
…because ever since he was a little guy he has taken his attire very seriously. When he was three he wore a Batman cape (a kerchief tied around his shoulders) every day to preschool.
Here he is dressed up as a fireman–and it wasn’t Halloween.
His favorite Christmas present when he was in first grade was a double breasted blue blazer. And for awhile he wore a beret to church, because, well, it was really cool. And, of course, he was the only 8th grader to wear a kilt to graduation.
In high school he was a bit too cool for his clothes. (He could rock those shades like Gregory Peck.)
These days it’s all about gingham shirts.
Well, you may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but everybody does love a sharp dressed man, right?
Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don’t know where I am goin’ to
Silk suit, black tie
I don’t need a reason why–ZZ Top
Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor and occasional producer and director. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe-, Screen Actors Guild-, BAFTA- and Emmy Awards, having starred in over eighty film and television productions during his forty-five year career. A practicing Episcopalian, he is a Lifetime Member and former President of the Episcopal Actor’s Guild of America whose home is at the Church of the Transfiguration (also known as “The Little Church Around the Corner”) on East 29th Street in Manhattan.
The Little Church Around the Corner
Lift up your hearts.
Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. He wrote The Red Badge of Courage when he was 24 and died at 28.
It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover’s thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks — an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.
dual personalities 