So daughter #1 is coming home tomorrow for a little flyover R&R. She is also celebrating a big birthday.
Good times ahead.
P.S. We must note that Joan Rivers has died, but I couldn’t say it better than daughter #1 did on her blog. RIP, Joan.
I went to a funeral this weekend. It was at the church where I grew up and it was filled with a familiar crowd of people. The man who died was the father of four, all classmates of mine, the OM and my dual personality. There were 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild–a fine, handsome family–good people.
It was the Rite I version of the Episcopal service without communion and included three hymns, one being “Once to Every Man and Nation” which I had not sung in a long time.
Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
Old James Russell Lowell–I gotta love you.
But I bet the clergy were cringing. This hymn is not even in our hymnal any more. It was printed in the leaflet. As I recall we used to sing it occasionally at my school–it was in that hymnal. Well, time makes ancient good uncouth…
Back at church on Sunday I was heartened to hear our rector give a sermon on the Gospel, which was Matthew 16:13-20, where Jesus asks Peter “Who do you say that I am?” For once, Peter gets it right: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The rector talked about how many professing Christians are really atheists who do not live their beliefs or actually walk the walk. But the bottom line, which he did not address, is that many Christians, including many members of the clergy, don’t seem to believe in anything anymore. You know, it’s all just a nice story. Jesus was just a social reformer trying to create a just society. They love “the symbolism of the Resurrection.” And as one fatuous misguided intern wrote in our diocesan newspaper, our “religion is just about being in one big love affair with God and Creation.” Ugh.
Well, it was good to be back in the pew after a few weeks off and it was fun to see the families and little kids back at church. We had ice cream to celebrate.
And our organist/choirmaster took the ALS challenge and was doused with ice water after church. Oh boy.
Before
After
True summer weather (finally) descended on us last week with temperatures pushing 100 and the heat index out of sight. But summer is coming to an end…Labor Day is a week from today! Good grief, Charlie Brown. Our (relatively) lazy days are getting busier and busier.
Can autumn be far behind?
Tout va bien.
Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It’s all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They’ve forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!
Leonard Lowe, Awakenings (1990)
Well, I am very sad about the suicide of Robin Williams earlier in the week. He seems to have succumbed to despair.
Robin and I go a long way back–all the way to “Mork and Mindy” which I watched when I was a graduate student in 1979. I thought he was hilarious.
I have written before about the kinship I always felt with him, of how he was my brother’s doppelganger, born weeks apart in 1951. Years would go by when I wouldn’t see my own brother, but I would see Robin. And then he played “Mrs. Doubtfire” and reminded me of my mother! It was that inner Scotsman, I guess, full of melancholy and sweetness. Indeed, he was like kin and so his death seems not so much like the death of a movie star, but like a brother. Perhaps you think that is silly, but it is how I feel. It is possible to feel very close to writers, poets, and yes, even movie stars.
I watched Awakenings last night–this movie is pure gold–and it is all about appreciating Life and reminding oneself often of the great gift that it is. So it is doubly heart-breaking to know that Robin Williams had lost sight of this.
“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”
–May Sarton, Journal of Solitude
May Sarton is right. Hang in there.
*Dr. Seuss
I worked hard this weekend around the house and on my bathroom project, so I regret that I did not have the strength of mind or body to write a lengthy blog post.
Instead, here is a summery picture of our dear mother (third from the left, middle row) when she was a camp counselor at the Newburgh, NY Girl Scout camp, Palisades Interstate Park, New York circa 1943. (She wrote all that information on the back of the picture, but did not include a date!)
Our mother loved the Girl Scouts and she loved summer camp. I’m sure she was disappointed that my dual personality and I attended a school that did not have a GS troop. She would have loved being an adult scouter. Although on second thought, times had changed by then, and I think she would have hated all that cookie-selling business. It was really camp that she loved.
Oh well, c’est la vie.
“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
–Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
How was your weekend? Mine went super fast, starting with my Friday night when, after an exhausting day, I sat down to watch Cat Ballou and promptly fell asleep. No great loss, but there went my Friday night!
Saturday I went to a baby shower-(!)-given by the friend of the first soon-to-be-a-grandma of my friends.
Time marches on–relentlessly.
I watched a good documentary about the Ghost Army in WWII suggested by my dual personality.
The documentary tells about a 1944 secret U.S. Army unit that was set up in order to misdirect the Nazis. The weapons used included inflatable tanks and specially made sound effects records. Their mission was to use deceit to fool the enemy into thinking there were troops where there were none. It worked to an amazing degree. Fascinating!
I worked on my DIY project in an upstairs bathroom–removing wallpaper and glue. The worst. My career as a hand model is officially over.
I continued to read about Ned Kelly and started a memoir of a pioneer Presbyterian minister who established the first protestant church on the western slope (in Lake City, CO).
Ned Kelly, as portrayed by the wonderful Peter Carey is an engaging enough character, but the rest of the Australian population, in particular the Irish element, are rather dreadful. I will persevere because Carey writes so well. Unfortunately we all know it will end badly for our anti-hero and there is nothing Kelly can do about it. Oh well.
The Rev. George Darley was truly an amazing man. He ministers to his flock, leads temperance meetings, raises money, conducts funerals for all sorts of characters, and treks back and forth over the San Juan mountains in all kinds of terrible weather. And he has a sense of humor:
“Before going far my swearing acquaintance seemed disposed to enliven the hard ride of almost sixty miles by having some fun at ‘the Parson’s’ expense. He finally called out: ‘Parson, this is not the road to heaven.’ Being already loaded, I answered: ‘No, but there are plenty of such men as you on like trails going to hell, and I am doing what I can to save them.’ That ended his attempts to have fun at the ‘Parson’s’ expense.”
Have a great week!
Edward Potthast “At the Seaside”
The woman in this painting looks comfortable, doesn’t she? Reading under an umbrella at the beach. Lovely. It was very hot this weekend in my flyover town and I could have used a beach, but there is no beach nearby. I had to make do with an air conditioned house. Not complaining.
I was working on my DIY project anyway. I developed blisters on my hand and had to stop. You might think this is because I was working so hard, but really I am just a wimp.
I finished the Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) mystery which I enjoyed. I hope she writes more with Private Detective Cormoran Strike. I started in on John Cheever stories. I am not a big fan of short stories. They are always a little too creepy and clever. Cheever’s are no exception, but he is a good writer.
I went to evensong with the boy to see his old pal Michael preach–his first homily since getting the green light for divinity school.
The boy and his old chorister buddies (head proctor, middle, and chaplain, right, at the RSCM camp)
The chaplain’s grandmother told me that she thinks we should all rent a bus and travel to NYC together when he is ordained. I was like, for sure, great idea! I can picture it now: the bus pulls up in front of St. Bart’s and all Michael’s flyover friends and family spill out on to Park Avenue! I am so ready.
I watched several movies including Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) wherein Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) et al go on “a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.”
My expectations were low, so I enjoyed it. Personally I think they should make a whole movie about Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) who definitely did not get enough face time in this voyage of the starship Enterprise.
I also watched an old favorite of mine, Proud Rebel (1958), which deeply affected me as child.
Alan Ladd plays a former Confederate who is searching for a doctor who can help his son who is mute as a result of a traumatic event during the Civil War. His son is played by his real-life son David Ladd and they make a likable and attractive duo. Wonderful Olivia de Haviland plays the woman who helps them and gives them a place to live and falls in love with both of them. The supporting players are good and it is well directed by the great Michael Curtiz. The music is even by Jerome Moross! It is a good movie that has a lot going for it. If only Alan Ladd weren’t as stiff as a board! If only he could muster an iota of romantic interest in Olivia’s character! If only he could act! It has everything going for it–even a smart and loyal dog–except for a leading man who is up to the part. There are many reminders of Shane in this film–from the boy to the bad guys–but one of the reasons I suppose Shane works is that the title character (as played by Ladd) endeavors heroically not to show his feelings for Mrs. Starrett. Alan Ladd is good at not showing his feelings.
And what did we learn here? That Alan Ladd could have played Spock? Discuss among yourselves.
*Mr. Spock
So look at this:
J. Crew put my mantra on a t-shirt. Once again I am hipper than I supposed.
And guess what? It’s Friday!
I am, as usual, looking forward to my weekend. I have no glamorous plans beyond finishing this book
which is not bad–Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling, knows her characters and the dialogue is quite good. The action moves right along. A couple of people at work recommended it and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.
I will also continue to scrape wallpaper glue off the walls of an upstairs bathroom.
Don’t worry–I won’t be home all weekend. I plan to go to an Evensong service where the boy’s childhood friend (and Best Man) is preaching. The RSCM (Royal School of Church Music) choir camp will perform. All my children attended this camp at some point, the boy for the longest duration. He even went to one in North Carolina. Anyway, that should be fun, if not super-fun.
The weather the last few days has been unbelievably beautiful–cool and not humid–and so unusual for this neck of the woods in July. I am extremely grateful. It is the kind of weather that makes you glad to be alive.
Take a deep breath and say, “Smell the pine in your nostrils!”
Okay I’ll explain. My best friend in the third grade Nancy went on a family vacation out west and she wrote me riotously funny letters. In one she described how her mother was continually saying, “Smell the pine in your nostrils!” Somehow this vivid picture stayed with me through the years and I used to say it to my children when they were growing up. We would giggle. Perhaps they will say it to their children.
Anyway, tout va bien! Have a great weekend.
When I talked to daughter #1 on Sunday, she told me that James Garner had died.
“You’ll have to break it to dad gently,” she said. Then we chuckled because it has been a family joke for years that the OM has a bit of a thing for old James Garner. I always thought this man-crush was odd because JG always reminded me a lot of the OM’s pater and their relationship was, shall we say, less than familial. But let’s not get too Freudian about it all…
James Garner, you will recall, was the star of the hit TV series The Rockford Files and Maverick and some good films including The Great Escape (1963), The Thrill of it All (1963) and The Children’s Hour (1961). He was only nominated once for an Oscar–for Murphy’s Romance (1985)–and, of course, he didn’t win. (William Hurt won that year for Kiss of the Spider Woman! Remember that one? Me neither.) He was miscast a lot–he played Philip Marlowe in Marlowe (1965) and Ira Moran in Breathing Lessons (1994). Frequently you had the feeling he was the second or third choice for a role.
But you had to hand it to him for being a working actor for all those years–1956-2010–that’s impressive. He didn’t seem to care if he had top billing; he just wanted the work. He gave the impression that he didn’t take his profession too seriously–he knew he was no Olivier–but it paid well and, despite the physical trauma of stunt-work, it wasn’t too hard.
“I’m a Methodist but not as an actor,” he wrote in his autobiography The Garner Files. “I’m from the Spencer Tracy school: Be on time, know your words, hit your marks, and tell the truth. I don’t have any theories about acting, and I don’t think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn’t take himself too seriously, and shouldn’t try to make acting something it isn’t. Acting is just common sense. It isn’t hard if you put yourself aside and just do what the writer wrote.”
A refreshing attitude, to be sure. He had “exasperated” down to a “T”. You can read all about his career here.
My mother was a fan of those Polaroid commercials he did with Mariette Hartley in the ’70s. Remember those classic commercials? (Remember those cameras?!) She thought they were great and I’m sure she bought at least one Polaroid because of them.
Anyway, I settled in and watched several episodes of The Rockford Files–Season One on Sunday night.
Rockford in all his Sansabelt, poly-wool glory
I find it very comforting to watch The Rockford Files with its car chases through the banal southern California scenery and the really bad ’70s apparel, home decor and hairdos, because I can imagine my parents watching it. It was one of their favorite shows. The 1970s (worst decade ever!) was the decade of my youth after all–when I graduated from high school and went to college. So The Rockford Files is nothing if not familiar.
So rest in peace, James Garner. We’ll miss you. And the walk down memory lane with the The Rockford Files just may continue tonight…I highly recommend it.
Into paradise may the angels lead thee; and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.
–BCP, Burial of the Dead, Rite I
Lovebirds circa 1988
Since my dual personality already posted about her silver anniversary and the wonderful wedding in England that started it all, I will refrain from doing so. My pictures from the big event are pretty much the same.
I will limit myself to this one of daughter #1 (almost 5) and the boy (2 1/2).
The boy, as previously noted, was coming down with chicken pox, but he was enough on the ball to be quite taken with the wedding. It was in the fall, after all, that he came home one day from pre-school and announced that he “had decided.” “Decided what?” I gamely asked. “I’ve decided to marry Lauren B.”
And, reader, he did. Just about twenty-three years later, he did–and in July as well!
I don’t think he would have been contemplating wedlock if he had not attended this great wedding in England. You just never know what your younguns are thinking.
What a bud.
Anyway, how was your weekend? I estate-saled, ran errands, tore wallpaper off the walls of an upstairs bathroom (you gotta have a project), attended church, and planted a rose bush.
As I noted on Friday, I planned to watch Road to Perdition, but I could not find my copy! Can you believe it? Curses again. Instead I watched The Naked Jungle (1954) with Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker and William Conrad with a really bad French (?) accent.
You remember–it’s the one about the plantation in South America that is in the path of a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants! It was clearly shot on a soundstage, but it is better than it sounds. Charlton is always worth watching.
On Saturday night I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
I am not a fan of Wes Anderson–he is highly over-rated, if you ask me–so my expectations were low. I enjoyed it, however, mostly because I am a minor fan of Ralph Fiennes. He is wonderful (who knew he could be funny?) and elevates the material. There are the usual cameo appearances by Wes’s hipster friends (Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Ed Norton, Bob Balaban, etc.) and inappropriate (and an inordinate) use of the F-word, but it is worth watching for Ralph and his sidekick played by the very funny teenager Tony Revolori.
I was a reader once again at church (substituting for vacationing lay readers) and I read the story of Jacob’s dream of the angels ascending and descending the ladder (Genesis 28:10-19a). I also read Romans 8:12-25, which includes “you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear” and also “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” Good stuff.
Here is a terrific rendition of the old negro spiritual “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder” sung by a Dutch men’s chorus. (I love that they pronounce Jacob as “Yacob.”) We don’t hear this one much anymore–probably because of the refrain: “Soldiers of the cross.” Listen to the whole thing–it’ll rev your engines to start the week off right!
If you love Him, why not serve Him?
(Here are all the words.)
Today is the OM’s birthday so let’s all sing a rousing chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”!
Gee, this is real keen!
And here’s a special rendition of “Shine On August Moon” just for you:
It should be noted that July 17 is also the birthday of the great James Cagney (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986). I must say I was not a fan of his as a child/young adult. He is an acquired taste, but I have grown to appreciate him over the years. For years he was type-cast as a gangster, but he won an Oscar for playing a song-and-dance man in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). He is sensational in White Heat (1949) as the devoted son and psychopathic killer. It was his portrayal of Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) that made me an admirer.
I remember watching this melodramatic movie with the boy when he was a small child. He was quite struck by the story and I think he actually wept during the scene when Lon’s young son Creighton is taken away from him. It prompted me to take a deeper look at Cagney who is indeed impressive in the film.
He was also quite a hoofer and his distinctive dance style was admired by the likes of Barishnikov, who was actually a pall bearer at his funeral. Check it out here–he’s like a marionette!
By the way, Ronald Reagan (U.S. President at the time) gave the eulogy at his funeral. Now that’s impressive.
So hats off to the OM and to James Cagney–let’s toast them both tonight!
Bonus picture for a Thursday Throwback: Our brother and one dual personality salute the flag in a festive mood in 1980. (My apologies for the ink stain on our poor brother’s face.)
dual personalities 