quotes | dual personalities

July 9, 2014

“Though many brave unwritten tales were simply told in vapour trails”*

by chuckofish

Let’s take a moment to remember that the Battle of Britain began on July 10, 1940 as Nazi forces attacked shipping convoys in the English Channel. It was the first major assault by the Luftwaffe. Although heavily outnumbered, the British fighter pilots put up a fierce fight and succeeded in driving off the attackers.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Window for Rolls-Royce, dedicated in 1947 in the Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey

“Spitfire” window was created to honour all members of RAF Fighter Command. It’s located at the former RAF Bentley Priory, headquarters of Fighter Command during the Second World War

“Spitfire” window created to honor all members of RAF Fighter Command. It’s located at the former RAF Bentley Priory, headquarters of Fighter Command during the Second World War.

Battle of Britain Memorial in Kent, England

A section of the Battle of Britain Monument in London, England

I might have to dust off my copy of The Battle of Britain (1969), an “historical reenactment of the air war in the early days of World War Two for control of the skies over Britain as the new Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force determine whether or not an invasion can take place.”

Directed by Guy Hamilton, there is a lot of aerial action by Spitfires and it boasts a who’s who of British actors, including Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Ian McShane, Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Kenneth More, Ralph Richardson, and on and on.

If I had not just recently seen Spitfire–The First of Few (1942) starring Leslie Howard and David Niven, I would certainly watch it.

Leslie Howard is great as aircraft designer R.J. Mitchell and, as usual, he is doing his best to support the war effort in the best way he can.

It goes without saying that I will toast those few brave flyers who fought so valiantly to save so many. Will you join me?

* Lines from “Our Wall” by Flight Lieutenant William Walker, 616 Squadron, inscribed on a plaque next to the memorial wall in Kent.

5 Comments

July 7, 2014

Yep, our family is as functional as all get-out.*

by chuckofish

As you know the OM and I spent four days over the holiday in Michigan with my dual personality and her spouse at our brother’s lake house in Clay Township on Lake St. Clair. He and his lovely wife wined and dined us, took us on boat rides

and on nature hikes.

They introduced us to the neighbors

and took us shooting

No, that’s not Ernest Hemingway, that’s my bro

and treated us to incredible sunsets from their backyard.

And who knew my brother could cook?

It was lovely.

*Homer Simpson, of course

13 Comments

July 1, 2014

“Gentleman, this is America!”*

by chuckofish

Last Saturday (June 28) was the birthday of Emerson Hough (1857–1923), the author of some 34 books and countless magazine articles and a distant cousin of my great-grandmother. You can read all about him here.

Emerson was also descended from the original Hough who emigrated from Chester, England in 1683 to Pennsylvania, but his ancestors subsequently moved from Pennsylvania to Loudoun County, Virginia.

Family legend has it that Hough’s most famous novel, The Covered Wagon, was based on my great-great grandmother’s journal.

If there is any truth to this story, boy, wouldn’t I love to get my hands on that journal! One of these days I’ll have to venture up to the University of Iowa (Hough’s alma mater) to check out his archive. (There are also letters in the collections at Iowa State and the University of Virginia.)

Besides writing fiction, Hough was also a journalist and conservationist. He once explored Yellowstone on skis and his reports were largely responsible for an act of Congress protecting the buffalo in the park.

One of the highlights of his writing career came when Theodore Roosevelt wrote him a fan letter, praising Story of the Cowboy (1897):

I don’t know when I have read a book that I like more than your “Story of the Cowboy.” I have always been hoping against hope that such a book would be written, but I had about given it up, and there was scant time remaining in which anyone could write it. At last, thank Heaven, it has been done! Not only is it to my mind a most fascinating book, but I think it is as valuable a bit of genuine contemporary history as I have yet examined.

Hough died in Evanston, Illinois, on April 30, 1923, a week after seeing the Chicago premiere of the silent movie The Covered Wagon, which was a huge hit. It ran fifty-nine weeks at the Criterion Theater in New York City, eclipsing the record of The Birth of a Nation. He is buried in Galesburg, Illinois.

findagrave.com

Anyway, I plan to toast old Emerson Hough tonight. And while I’m at it, I’ll toast Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders who stormed San Juan Hill on this day in 1898.

How about you?

*First line of The Mississippi Bubble by Emerson Hough

5 Comments

June 27, 2014

“If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”*

by chuckofish

Eli Wallach played the bad guy in the first movie I ever saw at the movies. He was Charlie Gant in How the West Was Won (1962)–the guy who attempts to rob the train, but is thwarted by the good guy, George Peppard.

It was a typical part for the ethnically ambiguous Wallach. A Jew from Brooklyn, he played many Mexican and Greek and Italian villains, including Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Stratos in The Moon-Spinners (1964) and countless others over the years. Like Ward Bond, he is always turning up in movies.

But Eli Wallach has died–at age 98! You can read about him here. I learned some fun facts about Eli, such as–although from New York, he went to the University of Texas in Austin where he learned to ride a horse. This came in very handy later in his movie career, right? He served five years in the Medical Corps during WWII, rising to captain. After the war he became a founding member of the Actors Studio and studied method acting with Lee Strasberg. He won a Tony Award, but no Oscars. He was married to the same woman for a very long time. She survives him.

Yes, he was quite a guy.

So let’s raise a toast to Eli Wallach tonight. I’m sure you have a movie in your own collection: How to Steal a Million (1966), Lord Jim (1965), The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966)…or The Holiday (2006)?

Eli Wallach with Michael Landon in "Highway to Heaven" episode

Eli Wallach with Michael Landon in a “Highway to Heaven” episode

TCM will celebrate Eli Wallach this Monday with a five film tribute.

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

*Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960)

8 Comments

June 26, 2014

Despite all our outfield saves*

by chuckofish

She was quiet and she stared at the sky. There were many ways of pursuing happiness and perhaps half of them were stupid. Most of the time you were a fool and the rest of it in pain.

–H.E. Bates, A Month at the Lake

Sometimes I feel this way. We all do, right? Sometimes I drive around on Saturday mornings going from estate sale to estate sale, feeling really stupid. And sometimes I think how much fun I would be having if my mother was there to ride around with me. She would have loved it. The driving around. The estate sale-ing. The being with me.

Sigh. My mother died 26 years ago today. I think about how much fun we’ve missed these last 26 years. She never even saw most of her grandchildren.

C’est la vie. We take the bitter with the sweet. We do our best. We are grateful for what we have. And had.

* “Honey, It’s Alright” by Gregory Alan Isakov

5 Comments

June 24, 2014

Being faithful in the little light received*

by chuckofish

Readers of this blog may remember that my great-great grandfather John Simpson Hough was a Quaker. He came from a long line of Quakers who came to Bucks County from England in 1683. The Houghs prospered in Pennsylvania and had many children, many with the same names–such as Benjamin, Hannah, John, Joseph, Silas–which makes genealogy so challenging…But I digress.

After moving West, JSH no longer actively practiced his Quaker faith, but I believe no small part of the high esteem in which he was held was due to his reputation as a fine Quaker gentleman–truthful, (relatively well) educated and beyond reproach in legal and mercantile dealings.

Anyway, the Quakers have always fascinated me. I found this little book recently, written by Robert Lawrence Smith, the former headmaster of the Sidwell Friends School in Washington D.C., the largest Quaker day school in the U.S.

I highly recommend it.

The most valuable aspect of religion is that it provides us with a framework for living. I have always felt that the beauty and power of Quakerism is that it exhorts us to live more truthfully, more simply, more charitably. For many Friends, simplicity is a cornerstone of their faith that continues to define their daily lives….For Quakers, simplicity is truth’s twin virtue: The two concepts are seamlessly intertwined. Without simplicity of spirit, we are not prepared to receive the truth. And if we fail to act in accordance with the truth, we cannot let our lives speak.

* “Being faithful in the little light received, in that light I saw more light; and by it I was taught to trust in God in all my ways, and to consult him to direct my paths.”
(Increase Woodward, 1744-1822)

3 Comments

June 23, 2014

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord to thee*

by chuckofish

I was a reader this Sunday and the first lesson was a great one from Jeremiah.

O LORD, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak I must cry out, I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. For I hear many whispering “Terror all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble.”Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take revenge on him.” But the LORD is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail…Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he delivered the life of the needy from the hands of the evildoers. (Jeremiah 20:7-13)

Anyone who thinks the scripture does not speak to us today, think again. At least, it spoke to me.

The assisting priest who gave the sermon did not, of course, refer to the first lesson or to the second, which I also read, but preached on the Gospel. Jesus tells us “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” He says, don’t be afraid to take up the cross and follow.

But we are timid aren’t we? Especially in our current culture which delights in ridiculing believers. Perhaps I am especially aware of this working at a university. I know it is somewhat easier living in flyover country, but still. I do take heart knowing that old Jeremiah, writing over twenty-five centuries ago, encountered the same troubles.

Anyway, it was good to get up and read those words, even if I was preaching to the choir.

We were at church on Friday night as well–for a fundraiser for the Episcopal City Mission, an old and worthy outreach program to the juveniles in detention in our fair city.

We went for dinner and then wandered outside to see the activities for children, in particular the petting zoo.

Even the OM got into the act.

I went to a couple of good estate sales on Saturday. I bought a great chair which I’m sure will find its way into one of my kid’s homes. For now it is sitting in my “office”.

I went to a house that through some detective work on my part–I am getting really good at figuring out who lives in the houses I visit–I discovered was the former home of an Episcopal priest, and indeed, the late dean of the Episcopal cathedral here in town. Bingo! I got some good books and a framed picture of a holy land landscape.

We had a couple of nice thunder storms. It rained, but that only made it muggier here. It is summer at last in the midwest. Sigh.

How was your weekend?

*Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879) hymn #707

5 Comments

June 18, 2014

Just saying

by chuckofish

“Keep a clear eye towards life’s end. Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God’s creature. What you are in His sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing you have received–but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.”

–St. Francis

Christ with Heavenly Angels, Tiffany window, 2nd Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL

5 Comments

June 17, 2014

True prayer

by chuckofish

Jesus’ life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was “all ear.” That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.

–Henri Nouwen

An internationally renowned priest and author, respected professor and beloved pastor Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) wrote over 40 books on the spiritual life. I was always impressed that Nouwen, having taught at both Harvard and Yale divinity schools and reaching an international audience with his books, moved to Canada and spent ten years as pastor at the L’Arche community in Richmond Hill, Ontario, living with people with “intellectual disabilities”. He was a truly humble person.

I highly recommend him to you.

4 Comments

June 9, 2014

So bye, bye, Miss American Pie

by chuckofish

[At Pentecost Peter] intendeth to prove…that the Church can be repaired by no other means, saving only by the giving of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, forasmuch as they did all hope that the restoring drew near, he accuseth them of sluggishness, because they do not once think upon the way and means thereof. And when the prophet saith, “I will pour out,” it is, without all question, that he meant by this word to note the great abundance of the Spirit….when God will briefly promise salvation to his people, he affirmeth that he will give them his Spirit. Hereupon it followeth that we can obtain no good things until we have the Spirit given us.

–John Calvin, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles

Sunday was Pentecost, but I stayed home and got busy cleaning. It is how I deal with the feeling that comes over me when one of my children leaves again.

Daughter #2 left for Chicago on Saturday and is there now. Then in a few days she will head back to Maryland for the summer. She has a long drive ahead but she is in good company, so it will be fun.