dual personalities

Tag: family

April 11, 2012

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light

by chuckofish

Well, it’s baseball season again. The Cardinals are off to a good start, managing somehow without Albert Pujols. Growing up in Cardinal-town, I have been a fan for many a year. My first baseball memory is in 1964 watching the final game of the World Series on a little black and white TV in my third grade classroom. I hardly knew what baseball was then, but I knew we were doing something special. I hit my peak in 1967 when we won the World Series with the help of my hero Tim McCarver. I even had a scrapbook. I have fond memories of 1982 and 2006 as well.

My grandfather, Daniel Herbert Hilton Cameron III, was a big baseball fan as well–of the Boston Red Sox! I forgave him for that. He loved the game and played it as a boy.

Bunker Cameron at Camp Abnaki in Vermont around 1911. He's the one on the far right with his elbow out.

"The baseball crowd" at the Feller Institute in Quebec 1916--Bunker is in the middle with the x written on his chest.

The Feller Institute was the French-speaking Baptist boarding school in Saint Blaise Sur Richelieu, Quebec that his father sent Bunker to after he was asked to leave Tilton Academy. I suppose he thought it would be strict enough to handle Bunker, but he was asked to leave that school too. Apparently it didn’t take much to get thrown out of a prep school in those days. (Bunker was thrown out of three.)

Ultimately, Bunker ended up at the University of Vermont back in Burlington without having actually graduated from high school. He would have played baseball there, I’m sure, but he left with a friend to go to Boston to enlist in the army during WWI. The war ended before they could sort out their options.

But we were talking baseball. Go Cards!

8 Comments
April 10, 2012

Who doesn’t love elephants?

by chuckofish

I’m not sure what made me think of elephants. Perhaps it was the boy’s recent visit to the flyover zoo and his reacquaintance with Raja and his newest progeny, Kenzi. Raja was the first elephant ever born at our zoo. Now, at age 18, he has started his own dynasty, with daughter #1, Maliha, and daughter #2, Jade. Anyway, I have always loved elephants.

I am a big fan of this elephant:

Babar, a French elephant

And an elephant in a movie is always a plus:

Doris Day and Jumbo

Cary Grant has an elephant for a friend in Gunga Din, and she comes in handy once or twice, although not in this scene. (Yes, you guessed it. She wants to follow Cary onto the rickety bridge and hilarity ensues.)

Tarzan always had cool pachyderm friends. Elephants are something you definitely want on your side, because they can do this:

Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross (1932)

One movie with an elephant I am not fond of is Disney’s Dumbo (1941) where in typical Disney fashion the child is torn from his mother’s loving embrace. When the elephant-mother is enraged, she is summarily punished. Boo.

It is very disturbing, and who needs that from a children’s movie?

I have blogged about my needlepoint elephants here, and I have a few other elephants at home:

Daughter #1's first needlepoint effort

I have elephants in my office:

I have actually touched an elephant. Flora, for whom the one-ring Circus was named, came to visit our church once long ago, when one of the Church Service ladies was on the board of directors of Circus Flora. Flora was still a baby then and came right into the Great Hall. She had long wiry black hair which was a surprise. Pretty neat.

Who doesn’t love elephants?

5 Comments
April 4, 2012

Be that as it may

by chuckofish

Today we take note of the birthday of our pater familias, who would be 90 today.

Wind on the Hill
by A.A. Milne

No 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.

8 Comments
April 3, 2012

Hail to thee Maryland!

by chuckofish

We are very excited that daughter #2 will be a doctoral student in English at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD in the fall.

Although through the years daughter #2 has been the “best” student in the family, effortlessly acquiring straight A’s, scoring high on the PSAT and SAT tests, garnering 5’s on her AP exams, learning to speak a foreign language fluently (unheard of in this family), and ultimately graduating third in her high school class, she has been the brunt of much teasing from the rest of her family for being a “good test-taker”. Much of this teasing resulted from her not being particularly interested in history, which is, of course, akin to sacrilege in this family. And truth be told, for many years she was more interested in pop culture than in her studies.

But she was just a late bloomer. When she went to college, and especially after transferring to Washington University and discovering the Norton Anthology of American Literature, she really blossomed. (I might note parenthetically that she discovered that a knowledge of history is important in order to put all that great literature into context. Ahem.) And, then, reading Moby Dick changed her life.

We couldn’t be prouder of her. She is a beautiful young lady, inside and out.

10 Comments
April 2, 2012

They call you lady luck

by chuckofish

But there is room for doubt
At times you have a very unladylike way of running out!

Oh I do love Guys and Dolls. All this talk of the lottery and mega-millions reminded me of the classic Frank Loesser show. I have seen it many, many times–it is a perennial favorite in high schools and college (I even tried out for a production at Williams College in 1977!)–but I particularly love those Kirkwood productions that the boy was in–twice: in seventh grade and as a junior in high school–both times playing the ever-popular Benny Southstreet!

Here he is with Nicely-Nicely Johnson: What’s in the daily news? I’ll tell you what’s in the daily news. Story about a guy who bought his wife a small ruby with what otherwise would have been his union dues. That’s what’s in the daily news.

And here he is basking in the after-show glow of middle school stardom.

I was unable to find any pictures from the Kirkwood HS production. Darn it. “I plead the fifth commandment.”

I also always loved the 1955 movie of Guys and Dolls with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. I mean, Marlon Brando singing? Irresistible! Johnny Silver played Benny Southstreet and he was pretty good. But the boy–he had that special “je ne sais quoi”. At least his mother thinks so.

6 Comments
March 28, 2012

Gone, and a cloud in my heart

by chuckofish

Well, daughter #1 has come to town and gone back to NYC. Heavy sigh. She posted about her visit here and I can hardly improve on it. Thank goodness for daughters and daughter-to-be, right?

4 Comments
March 22, 2012

On the road again

by chuckofish

What should I bring?

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

Daughter #1 is just coming home for the weekend, but travel is travel…Can’t wait to see her!

3 Comments
March 19, 2012

New Sarum picture Monday

by chuckofish

The other day I blogged about Old Sarum and New Sarum. Here is a picture of the boy at New Sarum (Salisbury Cathedral) in 1989, trying to climb up the grill, apparantly desperate to get into the church. Quelle monkey! He was 2 1/2 and wearing his engineer overalls and red Keds. A fashion plate even then.

 

The boy was in England for his aunt’s wedding. Here he is with daughter #1. And here they are at the wedding.

The wedding was not at Salisbury, but in the little local church in Titchfield. Lovely.

9 Comments
March 12, 2012

A Mary picture for Monday

by chuckofish

Here is a picture of daughter #1 when she was about 7 months old. She is pictured with her grandmother and namesake, along with the daughter of my friend Harriet and my friend’s mother–all four named Mary. How great is that?

Even if my mother had been named Ethel or Gertrude or Bernice, I would have named my daughter after her. And I would have learned to love the name Ethel or Gertrude or Bernice. As it is, I love the name Mary and have never regretted naming my daughter #1 after my mother. I was named after my grandmother who was  named after her grandmother. My  mother was named after her great-grandmother. Her older sister was named after her 2 grandmothers, Susie and Anna, i.e. Susanne.  It is a tradition of which I heartily approve. Ahem.

9 Comments
March 5, 2012

Embarrassing picture Monday

by chuckofish

Because I received some complaints that there was no Embarrassing Picture Monday post last week, I have bowed to the wishes of my readers with this embarrassing photo:

No, this is not the mug shot of a member of Motley Crue. Nor is it Alexander Godunov who played the crazy guy in Die Hard. It is the freshman year ID photo of the father of my children. I always did like those Viking types.

6 Comments