Time continues to march on and we are nearly halfway into the year.
It is hot here, and the hostas are looking pretty droopy and sad. The lawn, despite copious watering, is burning up. But the day lilies are amazing as usual–they love the heat! They scoff at the lack of rain. They just keep going.
(Photos taken from my car!)
This old plant is native to Asia and arrived on our shores early during the colonial period from Europe. It was so popular, and “passed along” from so many gardeners to their neighbors, it now grows happily from coast to coast, often along roadsides. When wagon trains went west, the old orange day lilies rode along with many a frontier gardener. I think that’s great.
Everyone should have some day lilies in their yard!
Today we remember my mother who died on this day in 1988. I can’t believe I have lived over half my life without her. Here she is with her baby sister Donna circa 1934.
Weep not, weep not, She is not dead; She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus. Heart-broken husband–weep no more; Grief-stricken son–weep no more; Left-lonesome daughter –weep no more; She only just gone home.
— from “Go Down, Death” by James Weldon Johnson (who also died on this day in 1938)
We had a wonderful time hanging out on Lake St. Clair with my brother and his wife. The marsh is beautiful there and a treasure trove of birds and other wildlife.
We went out in the boat…
…and drove to Port Huron, a nice town on Lake Huron with a good coffee shop. We sat on folding chairs and watched the big boats go by on the lake and on the St. Clair River.
Mostly we talked and talked. We are great talkers. We also celebrated my brother’s upcoming birthday…
Sunday we went back to Grosse Pointe and then I flew home without much ado that evening. Daughter #1 picked me up at the airport and I got home around 9:30. (The OM managed to get to Nashville and back and not burn the house down in the meantime. 🙌)
After the gorgeous Michigan weather it was a blow to return to 95-degree St. Louis! But bright and early the next day I arrived at church for the first day of VBS.
It was hot as blazes outside but I survived. Afterwards I went home and ate a big bowl of ice cream and took a nap. It will be a wild ride, but I think I’m up to it!
“They will not hunger or thirst, Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them And will guide them to springs of water.”
Just a quick post to say I got home safe and sound after a lovely sojourn in Michigan. The weather was lovely and it was, of course, great to spend time with my siblings.
So I am off to Detroit this morning and points north. As usual, I am traveling alone (the OM is going to a conference in Nashville), but I tell myself:
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes You can steer yourself Any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
I can handle it, right? I am thankful that my brother will be there to meet me.
We are experiencing some lovely weather this week and–bonus!–the cicadas seem to be gone! I was working outside on Tuesday when I suddenly noticed how quiet it was. The incredible din was gone. Thanks be to God.
The boy and his family have been in Florida this week–first at DisneyWorld and then in Sarasota with the other grandparents–so, even without the cicadas, it’s been pretty quiet around here.
(I had no idea it ever rained in DisneyWorld!!)
But I am getting ready for a short jaunt of my own up to Michigan on Thursday to meet with my sister and brother at his lake house. It has been a decade since I ventured up there, so I am looking forward to it.
The summer moves along…
I watched the great Italian movie La Strada (1954) the other day. It is one of my favorites. Federico Fellini’s masterpiece about a traveling strongman who buys a young girl from her poverty-stricken mother in ugly postwar Italy should be depressing, but somehow it is not. Anthony Quinn plays the strongman, who is a brute, a beast without an inner monologue. Giulietta Masina gives a shining performance as Gelsomina, the simple girl who follows him, and Richard Basehart is the Fool who tries to teach her that everyone has a purpose in life. It is a hard lesson to learn under the circumstances. “The Road” is a metaphor for life, of course, and so it is full of sadness and comedy. Here is Martin Scorsese talking about it.
“And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.” (Isaiah 35:8)
Have a good day–enjoy the good (or bad) weather, watch an old movie, and remember that your most important attachment is to God.
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!
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!
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
At my granddaughter’s pre-school, they worked on a questionnaire on the last day. In the section “When I grow up”, the 3-4 year olds were asked the question, “What will you do for fun?” Katie answered, “Tidy up.”
I laughed out loud. I’m sure her lovely mother (and probably the pre-school teachers) makes everything fun, à la Mary Poppins, even tidying up, but oh my goodness. She is a girl after my own heart.
I spent the morning tidying up. It is what I do. That and “desk work” as my Aunt Susanne used to say. I have never been one for deep cleaning, but tidying up, yes.
Life is seemingly full of chaos, so tidying up gives us the illusion of some control. We need that illusion. That is why we make our beds in the morning and hang up our clothes. Indeed, studies show that children thrive when there is order, routine and, yes, rules.
After getting up early and going to buy flowers at Trader Joe’s and taking them to church where I arranged them for Sunday services, I went with daughter #1 to watch Lottie play lacrosse…
It was quite hot as you can see!
The young bud found a friend while he cooled off under a tree…
After that early start to the day, I took it easy! I read another D.E. Stevenson book (published in 1957)…
…and enjoyed it very much!
On Sunday I went to the early service so I could go to the bud’s last lacrosse game. We had a good sermon on Titus 3:1-8 and another really good Sunday School class. Then it was back to the lacrosse field to sit in the almost 90-degree heat! The bud (and most of the players) was less than enthused.
Summer in STL is upon us I’m afraid.
Meanwhile Katie and Ida were introduced to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood–they were spellbound.
I will spare you a rant about Scottie Scheffler and the Louisville PD, but this about says it all. And this is perfect:
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
dual personalities 