The purpose of this posting is to share, with anyone and everyone who happens to pass this way, the beautiful thoughts expressed by Samuel Ullman in his poem Youth, excerpts of which appeared recently on Refdesk as the THOUGHT OF THE DAY. The posting is also a recommendation for Refdesk as a home page. Refdesk has an astonishing range—it has never failed me in my searches, regardless of their purpose. Donations to Refdesk are welcomed, but otherwise the service is free!
THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
“Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.” – Samuel Ullman
Here is the poem in its entirety:
Youth, by Samuel Ullman:
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
A brief biography of Ullman (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):
Samuel Ullman (April 13, 1840 – March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian. He is best known today for his poem Youth which was a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur. The poem was on the wall of his office in Tokyo when he became Supreme Allied Commander in Japan. In addition, he often quoted from the poem in his speeches, leading to it becoming better known in Japan than in the United States.
Born in 1840 at Hechingen, Germany to Jewish parents, Ullman immigrated with his family to America to escape discrimination at the age of eleven. The Ullman family settled in Port Gibson, Mississippi. After briefly serving in the Confederate Army, he became a resident of Natchez, Mississippi. There, Ullman married, started a business, served as a city alderman, and was a member of the local board of education.
In 1884, Ullman moved to the young city of Birmingham, Alabama, and was immediately placed on the city’s first board of education.
During his eighteen years of service, he advocated educational benefits for black children similar to those provided for whites. In addition to his numerous community activities, Ullman also served as president and then lay rabbi of the city’s reform congregation at Temple Emanu-El. Often controversial but always respected, Ullman left his mark on the religious, educational, and community life of Natchez and Birmingham.
In his retirement, Ullman found more time for one of his favorite passions – writing letters, essays and poetry. His poems and poetic essays cover subjects as varied as love, nature, religion, family, the hurried lifestyle of a friend, and living “young.” It was General Douglas MacArthur who facilitated Ullman’s popularity as a poet – he hung a framed copy of a version of Ullman’s poem “Youth” on the wall of his office in Tokyo and often quoted from the poem in his speeches. Through MacArthur’s influence, the people of Japan discovered “Youth” and became curious about the poem’s author.
In 1924, Ullman died in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 1994, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Japan-America Society of Alabama opened the Samuel Ullman Museum in Birmingham’s Southside neighborhood. The museum is located in the former Ullman residence and is operated by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
In my not very humble opinion, this is one of the most beautiful songs ever written (title and chorus are in bold italics):
Lean on Me
Sometimes in our lives
we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you don’t let show
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
So just call on me brother,
when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that
you’d understand
We all need somebody to lean on.
Lean on me . . .
All lyrics are property and copyright Bill Withers.
That’s my story and I”m sticking to it.
Tags: Alabama, army, Birmingham, Confederate, Family, Germany, Japan, Jewish, MacArthur, Mississippi, museum, Natchez, passion, poem, poetry, Port Gibson, rabbi, refdesk, religion, Samuel Ullman, youth
Special note to the reader: In this posting and in many others on my blog, you will find considerable details concerning disease and medical treatment over a period of many years, and considerable information on personal feelings. Please understand that my postings on WordPress form at least a semblance of an autobiography—they are written and presented primarily as a sort of history for my three daughters. WordPress offers an outlet for me to say those things that are very difficult for me to express, but as an autobiography I am able to achieve far more depth than in face-to-face interviews with my children. Everything I write has, at the very least, a nucleus of truth to hold it together, sometimes a bit embellished but always based on facts. I tend to ramble, but with care my readers should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
This posting closes with a poem, poignant in its message but untitled by the author. Had I written the poem I would have given it the same title I used for this posting: Don’t leave me alone.
In late 1999 Janie—my wife, my love, my life—was diagnosed with Stage Two ovarian cancer. She was 68 years old at the time, and although the statistics for survival were not in her favor she refused to bow to the disease, but continued living and loving life for eleven more years. The photo at right was taken in the fall of 1983 at Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. We celebrated her 52nd birthday in December of that year.
Her life was dramatically changed following the diagnosis, of course. She embarked on an eleven year journey, a grueling period punctuated with several major invasive surgeries requiring lengthy hospital stays, several rounds of chemotherapy, numerous X-rays, CT scans, PET scans, MRIs, blood draws, urine samples, frequent physical exams, trips to emergency rooms and brief hospital stays.
Throughout those years she held steadfast to her faith, enjoying life and considering each return of the disease comparable to the speed bumps found on city streets, each simply requiring a brief slow-down and then a return to normal speed, a return to living life and loving it. During periods of remission she frequently voiced her pleasure with life, saying “We have a good life.”
Seven years after the initial diagnosis of cancer and successfully holding the beast at bay, she was diagnosed with kidney disease, a complication probably caused mostly by the several series of chemotherapy she endured. The kidney disease progressed and she eventually required dialysis, a treatment that necessitated several more surgeries to place access ports for the dialysis needles, first in the chest while access in her arm was maturing.
My wife of 58 years, the mother of our three daughters, died at 9:15 PM on November 18, 2010 from complications of ovarian cancer and renal failure. We would have completed our fifty-eighth wedding anniversary just 25 days later on 13 December, and she would have celebrated her seventy-ninth birthday on the twenty-sixth day of December, one day after Christmas.
The eighteenth day of this month will mark the sixth month since she died, and the grief I feel—the loneliness, the heartache and the miserable feeling of being alone has flowed and ebbed with the tides of time. My daughters and friends have been stalwart pillars of support, even though rebuffed in those numerous instances in which my pity party was in full swing—and to my shame I admit that many times I have lashed out at them, desperately seeking someone or something on which to place the blame, or at least to share the blame with me.
I am constantly advised to remember all the good things I’ve done over the years, but I seem to be stuck in the ultimate low gear of self-blame. During my years of being gainfully employed I frequently spent long periods away from home, traveling all over the United States and other countries, and no matter how hard I tried I remembered all the things that I had done wrong and all the things that I should have done but failed to do. I’m reasonably certain that good things happened, but I had difficulty focusing on them, and now that I’m alone I’m still stuck in the same low gear.
I know, I know. There is a saying which tells us that one who represents one’s self in court has a fool for a lawyer. That same bromide can be applied to most attempts at self-analysis—in such situations one cannot see the forest for the trees, and ultimately help must come from someone looking in from outside the forest.
A hoary joke involves a drunk hurrying home late in the night, and in crossing his front yard he walks into a tree, the only one on the lot. He makes several attempts but runs into the tree each time. On the ground and stunned, he is heard to mumble, “Well, I may as well face it—I’m lost in a thick forest.”
In many ways I am like that drunk, although I am a teetotaler. I am lost in a thick forest of self-analysis and self-pity, frantically seeking someone to blame for anything and everything. Impractical and patently unfair, but it involves something psychiatrists term projection—we tend to project our faults into others, and then we criticize them rather than criticizing ourselves.
My neighbors to the west have been tremendously supportive during this transition period. The lady of the house recommended several online locations that she felt might help me in overcoming grief, or at the very least might help me learn to live with grief. All were helpful but one towered over the rest.
The following poem concludes a lengthy contribution to the Living With Loss magazine. I feel that in her poem the author gives sage advice that can apply to any grief situation, including mine.
From the introduction to the author’s essay: “. . . . although its subject matter is the loss of a child, it reveals commonality in grief such as the changes in the way survivors view the world and in the way the world views survivors, regardless of the loss.” Click here to read the complete essay and be warned—have a plentiful supply of tissues ready!
This is the author’s untitled poem:
Don’t tell me that you understand,
Don’t tell me that you know.
Don’t tell me that I will survive,
How I will surely grow.
Don’t tell me this is just a test,
That I am truly blessed,
That I am chosen for this task,
Apart from all the rest.
Don’t come at me with answers
That can only come from me,
Don’t tell me how my grief will pass
That I will soon be free.
Don’t stand in pious judgment
Of the bonds I must untie,
Don’t tell me how to suffer,
And don’t tell me how to cry.
My life is filled with selfishness,
My pain is all I see,
But I need you, I need your love,
Unconditionally.
Accept me in my ups and downs,
I need someone to share,
Just hold my hand and let me cry,
And say, “My friend, I care.”
Joanetta Hendel, author
Living With Loss Magazine
Bereavement Publications, Inc.
October 1988
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Tags: autobiography, blame, bromide, cet, chaff, chemotherapy, disease, forest, heartache, hoary, joke, kidney disease, message, mue, nucleus, outlet, ovarian cancer, pet, poem, renal failure, self-analysis, speed bump, stalwart, teetotaler, truth, wheat, x-rays
You, the reader, are about to be subjected to reading two odes, the results of my abject attempt at writing poetry. I apologize in advance to those that dislike doggerel masquerading as legitimate verse. And for the multitude that may not be familiar with the term doggerel, I tender the following doggerel attributes described by Wikipedia:
Doggerel might have any or all of the following failings: trite, cliché, or overly sentimental content, forced or imprecise rhymes, faulty meter, ordering of words to force correct meter, trivial subject, or inept handling of subject.
My poetry—and I use the term loosely—probably includes all those attributes, and poet laureates throughout history would probably wince if subjected to a reading of my efforts. However, if their wince meter measured humility, earnestness, love and forgivingness the indicator would go off scale in my favor.
Well, okay, I’ll back off a bit on the humility part. Hey, I’m a wannabe poet and let’s face it—even poet laureates had to start somewhere.
Ode to Janie
Your life has run its course
And now you have gone
To heaven as your just reward
And left me here alone.
I sail the seas without a mate
In weather foul and fair
But I fear the ship will founder
With my mate not being there.
And if the ship goes under
In life’s unruly sea
I’ll closely hold your loving words
That were I’ll wait for thee.
Ode to Janie and to everyone else
No one lives forever
At least not in this realm
And at best we’ll have a long life
With our Maker at the helm.
And when our life is over
And a new life has begun
Be it in that world of gladness
That waits for everyone.
But only if our time on earth
Is spent on doing good
Will we go to spend eternity
In that heavenly neighborhood.
That’s my Ode to Janie and my Ode to everyone else, and I’m sticking to both.
Postscript: When you, the reader, have recovered from exposure to this posting, click here to read my Ode to a Cheesecake, an excellent example of contemporary verse—oh, and it’s also an excellent example of doggerel. Hey, I do the best I can with what I have to work with.
Yes, I know, I ended that last sentence with a preposition—to paraphrase the words of Sir Winston Churchill, that is something with which you will have to up with put.
Tags: cheesecake, Churchill, cliche, doggerel, eternity, founder, healm, heaven, humility, laureates, life, mate, meter, neighborhood, odes, poem, poems, realm, sea, trite, verse, weather, wife, winston churchill
Somebody Let the Cows Out
My title for this post is a euphemism, as defined by Wikipedia: Euphemism is a substitution for an expression that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the receiver, using instead an agreeable or less offensive expression to make it less troublesome for the speaker. To Wikipedia’s definition, I would add that it also makes it less troublesome for the one to whom the euphemism is directed—big time!
The word euphemism comes from the Greek word eupheme meaning words of good omen, and etymologically is the opposite of blaspheme, or evil speaking—the Greeks felt that one should speak well or not speak at all. An admonition oft delivered to me by my sainted mother was If you can’t say something good about someone, don’t say anything. In my early years as a young boy, a small decorative plaque placed prominently on the wall of our combination living room/bedroom/game room/courting room bore a special poem—the poem and related information, all tremendously interesting and beautifully written, even if I do say so myself, can be found here and on my About Me page. The poem is as follows:
There is so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us.
I have carried the image of that plaque and the words of that poem in my memories for almost eight decades. I sincerely wish that I could say that I’ve followed its recommendation over those decades but I cannot—so I will not. I will, however, share this claim with any viewer that happens to stray this way—at this time, admittedly a late date, I am striving mightily to follow the creed expressed on that small plaque in the hope that my failures will be overlooked and credit will be given, both in this realm and in the realm to come, for subsequent attention paid to that sage advice.
Our English language is rich in euphemisms, some created in English and many converted to English from other languages, resulting in a wealth of ways to express something that at first glance is unrelated to the subject, a pot of gold that is constantly spilling over as new euphemisms are created.
And now on to the crux of this posting:
The most recent example, at least the most recent euphemism that applied to me, was when I recently took a neighboring couple to the airport to catch a flight. After we retrieved their luggage from the car trunk the lady favored me with a goodbye hug. Her husband normally shakes hands, but this time he put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me close and whispered in my ear.
I was expecting him to say something similar to See you in a few days, or perhaps Don’t be late picking us up, but what he said was Somebody let the cows out. I was perplexed for at least two nano-seconds and then I realized that my jeans were not zipped, hence the reference to the cows being turned loose, implying that someone had left the barn door open. His courteous and euphemistic whisper in my ear was my neighbor’s way of telling me that my fly was open.
I was lucky—my neighbor could have asked me whether I was anticipating, advertising or absent minded, with the emphasis on absent minded. I suppose that such a question, whether voiced openly—so to speak—or communicated to me in a whisper, could in its self be considered a euphemism—I prefer the one dealing with the wayward cows.
I immediately made a 180-degree turn and tossed the rest of my words—over my shoulder. The ambient air temperature at the baggage drop-off point had risen so swiftly that my first thought was of Al Gore, that he was right about global warming and that it had finally arrived in central south Texas, but then I realized that the increase in temperature was caused by my blushing. Speaking quite frankly, had I been asked I would have said that I did not have a good blush left in me, but I was wrong—I did.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Tags: advice, ambient, baggage, blush, cows, credit, decades, ear, English, euphemism, expression, greek eupheme, jeans, language, mother, nano seconds, omen, plaque, poem, posting, realm, receiver, sage, shoulder, subject, substitution, Texas, wayward, wealth, wikipedia
Pure poetry—A Tale of Two Kitties . . .
First poem (author and source unknown—title is mine):
Ode to a kitty and its dish
Oh, little cat up on the table
In a dish that’s much too small
Have you always felt the need
To curl up in the place you feed?
Don’t you know that germs abound
In vessels much too small and round?
They never even make a sound.
Second poem
A kitten’s plaint—its wish and its vision
(Title and lines in italics are mine)
There once was a kitty
That was fed in a dish,
And when it was fed
It would then make a wish,
That at least for one time,
For food that would be
Other than fish.
Fish always has a horrible smell
As any other kitty will tell,
And I wish that sometimes
During my many lives,
That a slice of roast beef
In my dish would arrive.
Its flavor for me would be as I ate,
A harbinger of pleasures inside the Gate,
My kittenish vision of life in Heaven
After I’ve used up my lives of seven.
Special note:
I am well aware that cats have nine lives, but while nine would not have rhymed with Heaven, seven fit nicely. One need only to suppose that the kitty had already used up two of its nine lives.
I found the first five lines of the second poem in my moldy horde of unfinished projects. I researched the five lines on the Internet but had no success, nothing even close. The lines obviously migrated—legally of course—to my collection of things started, unfinished and forgotten. If I did not create those lines, then I offer my abject apologies to the author, and sincerely hope that my finishing lines will be considered at least halfway worthy. And if I did create the first five lines of the second poem, then kudos to me.
Okay, okay—I know, I know! My efforts at poetry are amateur, puerile even but at least I’m making an effort so don’t knock it if you ain’t tried it!
That’s my poem and I’m sticking to it.
Postscript: The second poem—my poem—is dedicated to a friend, a lovely cat lover named Emily. I don’t mean that she only loves lovely cats—Emily is lovely, and her love for cats shines through. She has never seen a cat she didn’t love nor a cat that didn’t need loving, nor will she ever see a cat that doesn’t need loving.
Kudos to you, Emily!
Tags: cats, fish, germs, harbinger, heaven, horde, kitties, kitty, lives, poem, poems, poetry, roast beef, seven, table, vessels
Dear Janie,
Yesterday was the eighth day of January 2010, a supremely significant Saturday (ah, that alliteration—I cannot resist it). The entire world knows at least one reason why yesterday was significant. Elvis Presley was born on that day in 1944. Had the rock-and-roll star stuck to singing (more alliteration) and kept his distance from fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches he could have celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday yesterday—some say that drugs contributed to his early demise.
Yesterday Debra, our elder daughter—I use the phrase elder daughter because it carries far less emotion than older daughter—celebrated her fifty-seventh birthday. She and our granddaughter and their friend Sandy whiled the day away shopping in Austin at Sam Moon’s mercantile for Chinese-made items, primarily jewelry, and enjoyed a birthday lunch—probably at a McDonald’s outlet—no, not really—I’m certain that they went to a five-star restaurant, assuming that Austin has such.
I called Debbie on her cell phone and submitted her to the birthday song—I’m unsure whether she has recovered from that cacophony of sound. She has breezed past the half-century mark in age and added seven years, and she could easily pass for thirty—alright, she could definitely pass for thirty-five. I believe that her satisfaction with her work in one of San Antonio’s school districts is helping her stay young—that and her plethora—call it a gaggle—of close friends.
I believe that most of the credit for her youthful look can be attributed to the genes bequeathed by her mother, a lady that has always appeared far younger than her years. I would like to believe that I contributed to that youthful look, but I’m honest enough to give full credit to her mother for that.
Janie, if you’ll take a quick look at a certain spot in a certain section of Fort Sam Houston’s National Cemetery you’ll see a brilliantly white marble marker, newly erected, with a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers placed in front of it. The marker is etched with all the pertinent information required by military regulations, and the words Cry not for me, I wait for thee.
I have been unable to comply with the CRY NOT FOR ME admonition, but your statement that I WAIT FOR THEE has stood me in good stead and kept me from unraveling completely. That phrase is in the forefront of the multitude of reasons why I love you, and in the words of Emily Dickinson in her timeless poem, I shall but love you better after death.
The beauty of the flowers will last for several days in the cool weather of this December, but with the summer sun I’ll need to replenish them far more frequently, but I don’t mind—they are from our local HEB market—this is perhaps one of the best bargains that can be found in one of the finest markets in our city—nay, one of the finest in our nation.
Sweetheart, I’ll close for now. I have a photo of your marker taken by my new Sprint 4G phone, but I haven’t figured out how to get it from the phone to my computer. When I do I’ll add it to this letter.
Sleep well in heaven, my darling.
I love you more today than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.
Mike
Postscript: The marker photo was added today, January 10, 2011.
Tags: 4g, Austin, banana, birthday, cell phone, computer, death, december, drugs, elvis, emily dickinson, Fort Sam Houston, gaggle, genes, heb, january, jewelry, lunch, Macdonalds, mercantile, mother, multitude, National Cemetery, peanut butter, plethora, poem, San Antonio, saturday, sprint, summer, sun
I recently received an e-mail from my nephew in Mississippi that included a copy of a letter written by a Union soldier on the eve of a battle early in the War Between the States. Click here to read that soldier’s final written words, beautifully written in a fashion that is largely lost to us in this day and age. My posting of the letter garnered a comment from a reader, a comment to which I responded at some length.
This is the reader’s comment:
I was educated in the British system and for a long time, the Civil war meant either the War of the Roses or Cromwell’s war. It was as an adult that I started to understand our own Civil War. It is a sad thing the young man did not survive, consigning his small children to the very horrors of an orphaned existence. That said, I have always been struck by how beautifully young men wrote 150 years ago.
My response to that comment follows:
Thanks for visiting and thanks for the comment. Your observation that the written word was beautifully constructed 150 years ago necessarily invites comparison with today’s pitifully penned letters. Cursive writing is a lost art, soon to be consigned to the graves of history, along with Egyptian hieroglyphics and prehistoric cave drawings.
Our children are not learning penmanship. At best, they learn the art of printing letters, then graduate from there to thumbing letters and numbers on digital devices and clicking on an infinitesimally huge host of pictorial characters that represent thoughts, locations, ideas and emotions, expressing themselves silently without leaving any sort of footprints for the future, other than those captured and held in digital form.
Should the unthinkable occur—nuclear war with the resulting loss worldwide of the atomic movement of electrons, neutrons and protons through electrical circuits, whether land based or hand held—without access to that method of communication mankind will eventually regress to its original system of grunts, groans, hand signals and facial contortions to communicate, and millenniums later will probably advance from there to crudely drawn pictorial representations on rocks and on cliff sides and in various caves around the globe—that is, of course, if anyone remains after the holocaust of nuclear war. Civilization is by far the worst for the deficiency in communication wrought by binary bits.
And finally, just to wrap up this response to your comment, I will quote an unknown contributor to our language:
What goes around, comes around.
That astute observation, obscured in the ancient mists of time, may be reversed without any loss of its meaning, namely, What comes around, goes around, a truism equal to another obscure saying:
There is nothing new under the sun.
It’s useless to Google that affirmation—there are endless variations that effectively say the same thing, whether or not shown on the Internet. Somewhere on our planet, probably penned on a cave wall or on a stone buried in the rubble of some ancient civilization, there is undoubtedly a series of identical crude pictures or symbols. That series ends and continues with unrelated pictures or symbols, and then centuries later, perhaps millenniums later, the original series is repeated.
And even that is not the origin of that contribution to our language. It was undoubtedly expressed in the grunts, groans, hand signals and facial contortions that were used to communicate with others of the human species, and even before humans appeared was expressed by the physical appearance and the sounds and poses adopted by non-humans, the so-called lower orders of animals.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Tags: air, battlefield, brand, breastm omnipotence, breath, breeze, British, buttet, caveman, cheek, children, Civil War, civil war Mississippi, country, day, dead, death, debt, digital, divine, earth, egyptian, electrons, freight, God, government, hankie, hankies, herrick, hieroglyphics, hours, janie, kleenex, letter, life, marriage, nephew, neutrons, night, penmanshipp, poem, poet, protons, Providence, revolution, robert herrick, rosebuds, scenes, soldier, spirit, spot, storms, tears, temple, union, war between the states, wife
I received the following e-mail from my nephew in Mississippi, the nephew that toils lovingly and highly successfully in his chosen profession of designing and renovating churches of various denominations. The e-mail included a copy of a letter written by a Union soldier on the eve of a battle early in the War Between the States—I refuse to refer to it as a civil war—there was not a trace of civility in that bitter conflict. The letter was untitled and is reproduced in its entirety following my nephew’s e-mail, exactly as I received it.
Note: Letters to and about Janie can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here. My not-so-humble opinion is that all are worthy of being read—I wrote them and published them to commemorate Janie’s life and to serve as a reminder to all that life is fleeting—in the words of British poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674), Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying. Click on that excerpt to read the entire poem and more about Janie.
This is the e-mail I received from my nephew:
Uncle Mike,
Your most recent posts, your letters to Janie, have reminded me of a letter I learned about from a public television series done by Ken Burns. The series documented some of the history of the American Civil War. Specifically, the program included parts of a letter written by a Union soldier who later became a casualty of that war. Although the letter was written before his death, the spirit of the letter, for me, transcends life and death. I believe your letters do the same. A copy of the text of the letter is attached.
Larry
This is the Union soldier’s letter to his wife, written on the eve of battle:
July the 14th, 1861
Washington DC
My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure—and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows—when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children—is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death—and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.
I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and “the name of honor that I love more than I fear death” have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar —-that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night – amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father’s love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God’s blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
Sullivan
A special note: The soldier, Sullivan, did not survive the battle—he died, but his letter and his spirit live on.
That’s the story of my nephew’s e-mail and the letter written by a Union soldier, and I’m sticking to it.
Tags: air, battlefield, brand, breastm omnipotence, breath, breeze, British, buttet, cheek, children, Civil War, country, day, dead, death, debt, divine, earth, freight, God, government, hankie, hankies, herrick, hours, janie, kleenex, letter, life, Mississippi, nephew, night, poem, poet, Providence, revolution, robert herrick, rosebuds, scenes, soldier, spirit, spot, storms, tears, temple, union, war between the states, wife
In the winter of 2009 during the heavy snowstorms in and around Washington, D.C., an incident 
occurred in Alexandria that generated several postings on Word Press. Pending their annual Chocolate Party my son-in-law, the one that’s married to my daughter that lives, loves and works in Virginia, buried a huge cheesecake in their backyard flower garden under two feet of snow, an interment necessitated by the lack of storage space in their refridgerater—refrigereter—refrigeretar. Oh, damn it, in their icebox!
Click here to read my daughter’s explanation of the unprecedented backyard burial.
I composed a rather brilliant poem—well, somewhat brilliant—well, at least it rhymes—and used it to comment on the incident. That comment, unlike the cheesecake arisen from the grave, remains buried under an avalanche of postings by my daughter. I am resurrecting it, bringing it up 
from and out of the Stygian darkness of the nether world of comments and into the bright light of day for others to enjoy.
Because I took the liberty of borrowing a few words and phrases from several prominent writers and using them in my poem—horribly fractured, of course—I humbly offer my abject apologies to the preacher John Donne, to the poet Joyce Kilmer, to my favorite author Henry David Thoreau and to my daughter in Virginia, the author of An apology to the wood anemone.
I also apologize to visitors to my blog—I apologize in advance for wishing a pox on those that do not visit, and a double pox on those that visit and fail to comment on my postings. Finally, I apologize for making so many apologies—I cannot help myself—it’s something I cannot control. I apologize often in an effort to dodge or divert or at least minimize criticism—it’s in my nature—mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa maxima.
Please note that I freely admit that I apologize far too often, but I am thankful to report that it’s one of only two faults. In addition to the fault of copiously apologizing, I am also modest to a fault. Sans apologies and modesty, I would be perfect!
Ode to a cheesecake
Breathes there one with soul so dead
That never to one’s self hath said
Methinks that I shall never see
A word so lovely as anemone.
Offed from my tongue it rolls
Sadly as the bell that tolls
Not for thee and not for me
Nor for the lovely anemone.
But for the cheesecake in its bower
Not ‘neath trees nor plants nor showers
Nay, ‘neath snowstorms full of power
Lying beneath the snow for hours
In wait for the chocolate party
To be eaten by goers hearty.
But wait, what’s that I see
Beside the cheesecake ‘neath the snow
The anemone arises ready to go
With the cheesecake to the table
Petals eight to be divided
‘Mongst the diners so excited
A ‘nemone to see.
They smell the petals
They hear the bell
They’ll come to know
As time will tell
If snow and cheesecake
Sounds their knell
Or leaves them alive
And well.
— H.M. Dyer (1932- )
I neglected to give credit to Sir Walter Scott for his poem The lay of the last minstrel in my Ode to a cheesecake—credit is now given. I also neglected to say that I loved your poem An apology to the wood anemone—well done! Your cheesecake arising from the snow is reminiscent of Thoreau’s Walden in which he tells of a golden bug that in the spring gnawed its way out of a table after being entombed in the wood for many years.
Tags: anemone, annual, apology, avalanche stygian, backyard, bell, bower, bug, burial, cheesecake, chocolate, D. C., daughter, feet, flower, garden, grave, hell, icebox, john donne, joyce kilmer, liberty, mea culpa, minstrel, nether, ode, party, poem, power, refrigerator, snow, snowstorm, table, Thoreau, Virginia, Washington, wood
In January of this year I sent an e-mail containing John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, Barbara Frietchie, to a friend that lives in Alabama. She acknowledged receipt of the e-mail and replied as follows:
Wow! What a beautiful story of pride, loyalty and courage! Thank you for sharing this poem. I’m sending it on to several of my friends up in Northern Virginia.
She also asked who commanded the troops that entered Frederick, Maryland during the War between the States—I use that title because as yet I have learned nothing about the war that could be considered civil.
I responded to my friend with this e-mail:
Subject: Barbara Frietchie . . . . .
The troops in Whittier’s poem were General Robert E. Lee’s Confederates, led by General Stonewall Jackson. I was introduced to Barbara Frietchie in elementary school—not the real Barbara, just the poem—somewhere around the fourth grade. I’ve forgotten most of the poem, but for some reason these two verses took root: Shoot if you must this old gray head . . . and, Who touches a hair of yon gray head . . .
And now for the benefit of anyone not familiar with the poem, here it is:
Barbara Frietchie
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
Fair as the garden of the Lord,
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde.
On that pleasant morn of the early fall,
When Lee marched over the mountain wall,
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead,
Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
“Halt!”—the dust-brown ranks stood fast,
“Fire!”—out blazed the rifle-blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman’s deed and word;
“Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.
All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:
All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.
Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall’s bier.
Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807—1892)
Some final notes:
Given the present demographics of Maryland, Barbara Frietchie could well have been an African-American. Could be—so much of our history is being rewritten that anything is possible (click here for George Orwell’s 1984). Future research online may find that the lady that made the first flag was an African-American—whether true or untrue, that would become part of our revisions of American history.
If the revisions continue, eventually George Santayana’s time-worn statement that Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it will take on new meaning—learning and repeating revisionist history will do little to advance civilization and our standing in the world order.
If I fail to learn history and I am doomed to repeat it, I prefer to repeat the history of the founding of our nation. I do not wish to fail to learn and repeat history that has been revised, and in the revision process has cast aside many of our basic values, and distorted and diluted others.
That’s my opinion—what’s yours?
Tags: African-American, Alabama, american, civilization, courage, demographics, elementary, flag, frederick, frietchie, garden, george orwell, grave, history, january, Lord, loyalty, Maryland, Northern Virginia, orchard, orwell, peach, poem, pride, rebel, revisionist, rifle, robert e lee, santayana, scarf, union, whittier, world order
This posting is a letter to Ann Landers and her response to the letter writer. Robert J. Hastings’ The Station may be found on the internet with some variations, but the story and its message are always the same. The date it was published in Newsday is unknown, but I’ve had my typewritten copy (remember typewriters?) for twenty years or more—it’s pretty faded and smudged now, but its pertinence and its heartfelt pathos are still there, and it still tugs at my heartstrings when I read it. I’m posting it here for those that may have missed the publication at the time, and for the multitudes that have come along since it was published. There is a lesson to be learned here, if one will only take the time time to read it and digest its message—and then, perhaps, to apply the message to one’s own life.
The Newsday header for Ann Landers reply was:
Life must be lived one day at a time
Dear Ann Landers,
In July of 1985, my wife was diagnosed as having terminal cancer. Shortly afterward, your column on The Station by R. J. Hastings appeared in Newsday. For years, we had talked of some day going to Paris, a city I fell in love with as a GI. The day after I read the poem, I realized that it was time to pull into the station.
As soon as the doctor ok’d the trip, we went to Paris and had the most beautiful vacation of our 43 years. My lovely wife passed away a year and a half after the diagnosis.
I have since taken the liberty of passing copies of that column to friends. One purchased his some day car. Another went on a long-delayed trip. But the station also can mean visiting a sick friend, and that some day should be now. There is so much hurt in looking back and remembering those things we intended to do and didn’t.
Thank you, Ann Landers, for Paris.
Irv Gaiptman, Plainview, NY.
Dear Irv:
You were dear to let me know what The Station meant to your life. Here it is for all the others who haven’t as yet learned that lesson:
The Station
Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows we bring in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a complete jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering—waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
When we reach the station, that will be it, we cry. When I’m 18. When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz. When I put the last kid through college. When I have paid off the mortgage. When I get a promotion. When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after.
Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.
Relish the moment is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.
By Robert J. Hastings
Tags: aisles, Ann Landers, college, college mortgage, column, destination, dream, flags, friend, hastings, heartstrings, jigsaw puzzle, lesson, letter, mercedes benz, motto, multitudes, New York, newsday, paris, plainview, poem, promotion, retirement, station, train, typewriters, village halls, writer
Below is a recent post from my daughter’s blog at cindydyer.wordpress.com. The posting features a poem, An apology to the wood anemone. Her poem pays tribute to a beautiful flower, one she thought was long dead but survived last winter’s record snowfalls in Alexandria, Virginia. Not only did it survive—it appears to have thrived following its burial under snow throughout the fierce snowstorms last winter.
This is her tribute to the wood anemone:
An apology to the wood anemone
Lovely eight petal wood anemone
please accept my apology
More plants, I surely did not need any
but your price was reduced to a hundred pennies
Relegated to your preferred shady spot
remembering to plant you, I most certainly did not
Lost in the shuffle of spring and summer
as the King of Texas says, “what a bummer!”
you braved well over two feet of snow
yet still come spring, you put on a show
Please accept my apology
lovely eight petal wood anemone
© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.
______________________________________________
Her posting continues:
I must preface my father’s poem by explaining why he felt the urge to wax so eloquently about a cheesecake. In February we hosted a very scaled back Chocoholic Party for friends—aptly renamed the “Cabin Fever with Chocolate Party.” It was scaled back from our annual soiree because of the unprecedented piles of snow in our area, obstructions that resulted in limited parking for guests from outside the neighborhood—our annual party usually brings in 35 or more chocoholics, so ample parking is necessary! This year, our guests needed to be able to walk to our house through some 30 inches of snow! As for the cheesecake, earlier in the week we bought a huge one from Costco during our rounds to gather food for this semi-potluck party. I was sitting at the computer working a few days before the party when Michael came downstairs—a brown wrapped package in one hand and a shovel in the other—and unlocked the patio door. I watched him, wondering if he was going to dig a path through the almost three feet of snow to the back gate (and why?). He dug a hole into the snow bank just outside the door and buried the package. I then asked, “What in the world did you just bury?” “Cheesecake!” he exclaimed. “There wasn’t any room for it in the refrigerator and since the party is just two days away, I figured it would keep.” And it kept—such a resourceful man—I think I’ll keep him.
My poem, An apology to the wood anemone, inspired my father to write his own poem, a work related to my Apology. Bravo, bravo, King of Texas! His comments to my original posting include his wonderfully crafted poem, Ode to a cheesecake.
Here are my comments to my daughter’s posting of her poem:
In advance of posting this comment, I humbly offer my abject apologies to the preacher John Donne, to the poet Joyce Kilmer and to the author of An apology to the wood anemone . . . It’s not my fault—it’s in my nature—it’s something I cannot control. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa maxima.
Ode to a cheesecake
Breathes there one with soul so dead
That never to one’s self hath said
Methinks that I shall never see
A word so lovely as anemone.
Offed from my tongue it rolls
Sadly as the bell that tolls
Nor for thee and nor for me
Nor for the lovely anemone.
But for the cheesecake ‘neath its bower
Nor ‘neath trees nor plants nor showers
Nay, ‘neath snowstorms full of power
Lying ‘neath the snow for hours
In wait for the chocolate party
To be eaten by guests so hearty.
But wait, what do I see
Beside the cheesecake ‘neath the snow
The anemone arises ready to go
With the cheesecake to the table
Petals eight to be divided
Among the diners so excited
A ‘nemone to see.
They smell the petals
They hear the bell
They’ll come to know
As time will tell
Whether snow and cheesecake
Sounds their knell
Or leaves them alive
And well.
H.M. Dyer (1932- )—All rights reserved.
I neglected to give credit to Sir Walter Scott for his poem ‘The lay of the last minstrel’ in my ‘Ode to a cheesecake’—credit is now given. I also neglected to say that I loved your poem, An apology to the wood anemone. It is well crafted and exceptionally well done!
Your anemone arising from the snow in the spring is reminiscent of Thoreau’s “Walden,” in which he tells of a golden bug that in the spring gnawed its way out of a table after being entombed in the wood for many years.
_____________________________________________
See more of my father’s pondering, hypothesizing and philosophizing, musings, comments, lectures, diatribes, royal reflections and revelations, essays, memoirs, biographies and autobiographies, tall tales, fables, childhood memories, yarns, jokes, poems, political and social commentary, and my favorite of his topics—excellent grammatical lessons—on his website, thekingoftexas.wordpress.com.
Tags: alexandria, anemone, apology, bell, blog, bower, bug, burial, cabin fever, cheesecake, chocolae, costco, diners, donne, golden, guests, joyce, kilmer, knell, minstrel, nature, ode, party, petals, poem, shuffle spring, soul, spot, summer, table, Thoreau, tongue, Virginia, Walden, walter scott, winter snow
This posting was prompted by an e-mail from my son-in-law in Wylie, Texas concerning his running battle with possums in the attic. Other postings related to that saga can be found here, and here and also here.
Here is his e-mail:
The possum saga, continued:
Possum returns to attic after fraternizing with rabid possums and skunks recently highlighted in the news.
It takes even better food to entice possum into trap because he now knows what it is. More fruit and peanuts fail—bait escalation includes pizza, fried chicken, mahi-mahi and rack of lamb with mint sauce—still no possum in trap.
Finally $150 Chateaubriand meal from Three Forks and glass of Baron de Rothschild ’57 claret does the trick. Possum decides he is ready for another trip to visit his country cousins and enters the trap for the meal.
Brantley shoots possum while still in trap, rolls same in plastic bag and places in the trash.
I just received your e-mail concerning the demise of a possum in your attic, and I feel compelled to tell you that it was not the same possum you released into the wild “a mile away” from your house. This was definitely a different animal, obviously a female, and obviously accustomed to the finer things in life, particularly gustatory delights. Given her appetite for fine wine and Chateaubriand, she was probably a procreating Parisian possum in Plano’s possum population (I just love alliteration!).
This lady (?) possum was very likely a one-time companion—well, perhaps more than one time—to the one you captured and released. That teenage possum was in a blue funk, trying desperately to understand the loss of his one true love. That’s why he paced your attic—he couldn’t sleep for thinking of what had been, and what could again be if they could only be reunited.
Other than mere physical attraction, he had little interest in the one you summarily shot, 
placed in a plastic bag and consigned to the trash. She was just a temporary diversion while he continued his quest for the one trapped by your next door neighbor some time prior. The fate of that possum is unknown, but your neighbor took a snapshot of her (pictured at right). She is gorgeous, and one can readily understand why the teenager you released into the wild had such strong feelings for her!
And I’m sure he was fed up with the Parisian possum’s constant whining and complaining about his 
inability to satisfy her materialistic needs, such as a bigger house, better food, etc. Otherwise, he was probably doing okay for himself in their relationship. Through an intensive online search, I found an image of a female Parisian possum, pictured at right (there goes that alliteration again!). Judging by this image, it’s likely that a friendly relationship with a lady Parisian possum would be exciting and memorable.
Congratulations on your latest feat, and I assure you that it detracts in no way from your “bring ’em back alive” status. Even Frank Buck, when faced with death or injury to himself or to others, dispatched elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers and other such wildlife to another world, far away from zoos and their natural habitat—and he probably also sometimes shot them simply because he was—well, in such instances, he was referred to as Frank “just got pissed off at ’em” Buck.
Tags: attic, chateaubriand, child, dead, death, definition, dians ross, ditty, Family, free, frost, George Jones, heritage, insulation, Keats, nose, o’possum, Obama, poem, poets, possum, robert, saga, shelley, state, structure, Texas, tiny tim, toby keith, trap, ukulele, whitney houstson, wild
My favorite attorney son-in-law and his adventures with wildlife—specifically with possums— prompted this posting. I have two other sons-in-law, one of which is my favorite computer whiz son-in-law and the other is my favorite truck broker son-in-law). My favoritism fluctuates among sons-in-law depending on my needs—whether legal matters, computer related matters, or matters related to the international transportation of goods (I also depend on the truck broker son-in-law and his son—my grandson—to assist in moving weighty goods to and from my home).
A related posting, Ode to a Possum, a must–read, can be found here.
More possum info here.
And even more here.
This is the e-mail I received from the son-in-law that luxuriates in marriage with my princess daughter in Wylie, Texas:
Here is the update on our “Possum in the Attic”:
Night 1:
Trap is carefully set; loaded with peanut butter, peanuts and an old banana.
Next day trap check:
Banana is mysteriously missing, trap was not sprung, peanut butter and peanuts untouched. Trap is adjusted for sensitivity, as it is suspected the possum is very cleverly eating the banana from outside the trap or tip toeing into the trap and slyly leaving the peanuts and peanut butter to confuse the trapper (which has had considerable success).
Night 2:
After trap is adjusted, it’s re-baited with a nice bunch of canned peaches. Peanut butter and peanuts from night before are left in place.
1:00 AM:
Kelley hears a rustling in attic and suspects the possum is up and about. Brantley stays fast asleep, hearing nothing.
7:00 AM:
Kelley checks the trap and THE POSSUM IS NABBED! Curiously, the peaches and peanut butter and peanuts are gone completely. He’s rather large but seemingly docile and even appears friendly. Kelley demands that he be set free unharmed.
7:15 AM:
Brantley sets possum free a mile or so away in the woods. Possum seems pleased and in a good mood—Brantley wonders whether a mile is far enough.
Thus ends the possum hunt.
Or does it?
I think I’ll keep the trap for a few weeks—just in case!
Tags: attic, chateaubriand, child, dead, death, definition, diana ross, ditty, Family, free, frost, George Jones, heritage, insulation, Keats, nose, o’possum, Obama, poem, poets, possum, robert, saga, shelley, state, structure, Texas, tiny tim, toby keith, trap, ukulele, whitney houstson, wild
Please note: There are several other postings related to this literary examination and elimination of possums in attics. Such problems are commonplace in our state, in fact in most states, and perhaps these postings will enable others to handle such problems more effectively and efficiently. The other postings can be found here, and here.
Oh, and also here.
Following in the footsteps of Keats, Shelley, Robert Frost and other exalted poets, I have penned Ode to a Possum. An ode is defined as, A lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure. My Ode to a Possum conforms to that definition perfectly.
As with many similar lyric odes, this one is meant to be sung. My list of preferred singers would include Toby Keith and Diana Ross—perhaps even George Jones or Whitney Houston, depending on their current medical status.
My first choice would have been Tiny Tim and his ukulele, but that worthy is long gone, both from the music scene and from this world—may he forever happily and gracefully tiptoe through the tulips.
A perceptive reader of this posting will note the absence of an O, as in Opossum, and will undoubtedly wonder why it was omitted. That’s because the prefix O is not used in our southern regions, and especially not in the sovereign state of Texas, neither in writing nor in speaking.
A similar spelling may be noted in the name of our Irish president, Barack O’bama—the O is present with an apostrophe added, as in O’Reilly, O’Brien and other Irish names. (Thanks, and a tip of the kingly crown to Kinky Friedman, our perennial candidate for political office in Texas, for defining the president’s heritage by adding the apostrophe and for saying he would vote for him).
And here is my lyric poem:
Ode to a Possum
In Wiley lived a possum named Fred,
That used Brantley’s insulation for his bed.
He rambled ’round the attic
Till the family grew frantic,
And wished that ol’ Fred was dead.
Brantley baited a trap with wine,
And chateaubriand quite fine.
Of each did Fred partake,
His death then did fake,
And Brantley told Kelley “It’s time.”
“Don’t kill him,” Kelley then cried,
But Brantley took Fred for a ride.
No mercy would he show,
Cause ol’ Fred had to go.
In the attic he could not abide.
Just past the limits of the city,
Brantley’s heart overflowed with pity.
Though his eye shed a tear,
Fred had nothing to fear,
And I’m nearing the end of this ditty.
Fred did Brantley return to the wild,
By handling him gently and mild.
But when Fred was free,
He climbed a tall tree,
And at Brantley thumbed his nose like a child.
The saga of Fred will be told,
By Kelley’s children when old,
How a possum so bold,
Came in from the cold,
But succumbed to a trap that would hold.
That’s my Ode to a Possum and I’m sticking to it.
Tags: attic, chateaubriand, child, dead, death, definition, dians ross, ditty, Family, free, frost, George Jones, heritage, insulation, Keats, nose, o'possum, Obama, poem, poets, possum, robert, saga, shelley, state, structure, Texas, tiny tim, toby keith, trap, ukulele, whitney houstson, wild
On the tenth of this month I posted the contents of an e-mail I received from my son-in-law in Dallas. His e-mail consisted of a news report, and a poem supposedly crafted by a man that died in a nursing home in North Platte, Nebraska. The only comment generated by my posting was dated a few days later, but was rejected by Word Press as spam because it was posted from a commercial web site. I belatedly discovered the comment, and finding myself with mixed emotions as to its content, I decided to allow it so I could respond.
Click HERE to read my posting of the poem, and click HERE to determine whether the poem is truth or fiction.
My purpose in making this posting is to share that comment and my response with my viewers. I believe the comment is a canned message to bloggers, probably used as a message intended to attract them to a commercial web site. In our federal government terminology it would be termed a boiler-plate letter, a canned reply to an inquiry—the only changes needed would be dates, names, locations and the event in question.
Should a viewer to this posting have an interest in buying or selling diamonds, or wish to learn everything you ever wanted to know about diamonds, click here for the commercial web site—it’s worth a visit.
This is the original comment on my posting, exactly as received:
Great post. It is clear You have a great deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned to your advantage.
The way you write shows you have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself.
It seems to me that while While you have some personal weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them.
And this is my response to the comment:
Great comment! Thanks for visiting, and thanks for commenting. I apologize for not responding earlier. Word Press considered your comment to be spam, and therefore tossed it atop my spam garbage pile.
I just noticed the comment yesterday. I agree with Word Press that it is spam, intended to draw me to your commercial web site and perhaps add to your take of moola. I visited the site, and found it interesting and quite informative.
I am not, however, in the market for diamonds, neither for buying nor for selling them. I dragged your comment out of the garbage because I was fascinated with your analysis of my writing, and therefore approved the comment in order to respond to it.
I made no effort to correct minor errors in your comment—errors such as improper capitals, unnecessary commas, and duplicated words—while/While. Since the errors did not materially divert from the comment’s purpose, I allowed them to stand.
I am in awe of your ability to analyze my writing with only a small sample available. I am particularly astounded by your ability to compliment and criticize one’s writing ability in the same brief sentence—you have both complimented and criticized my literary efforts in each of the three sentences in your comment.
I cheerfully accept your criticisms and compliments with equal fervor. I also accept the fact that you have effectively outed me as a modern-day Janus, an ancient Roman god believed to have two faces that faced in diametrically opposite directions, features that enabled him to see into the past as well as the future.
Thanks again for the comment—it pleases me, so much that I plan to bring it and my response into the daylight as a separate posting, one in which I will recommend your website and highlight it for easy access by viewers to my blog. I may also expound on your astounding ability to analyze persons on a limited sample of their writing ability. You are apparently well-trained in the disciplines of psychology as well as psychiatry.
I can only imagine what personality traits you could identify if given a handwriting sample—by using the proven process of inductive reasoning, you might well be able, as was the god Janus, to peer into that person’s future!
Postcript: I would propose that every reader of this posting do the following: Imagine that you are the ancient Greek god Janus, the god of two faces. Step out of yourself, then turn around and face yourself and then ask yourself whether the comment of the diamond merchant may apply to you. Click HERE for more information on Janus.
Can you truthfully deny that you see yourself reflected in the three sentences?
Can you truthfully claim that none of the three apply to you?
I did exactly what I suggest you do and I saw my reflection—hence this posting.
Ain’t that weird!
Tags: Dallas, elderly, geriatric, Internet, Missouri, Nebraska, North Platte, poem, sta
Does anyone remember the return to their classroom on the first day of school following the summer hiatus, a return to the unwilling pursuit of an education under the tutelage of teachers toiling at the elementary level? On that first day at my beloved school, every child in every grade (first through sixth) was privileged—nay, ordered—to stand in front of the blackboard, facing the class and disclose some or all of whatever they did on their summer vacation.
Some of my classmates stood stiffly throughout the delivery with arms held rigidly at their side. Others stood with hands in pockets or clasped behind their back, and in some limited cases, especially for the boys but occasionally for one of the girls, with hands covering their crotch, concealing that area of their anatomy. Whether that pose was an effort to divert from, or perhaps attract attention to that area, the “hands covering crotch” was limited by the teacher to a very few seconds, with the remonstration being made before the speech began and sometimes repeated during the presentation.
The title to each speech—the preamble, so to speak—was given rote and was identical for each student except for the name. My speech to my classmates began with this:
What I Did On My Summer Vacation, by (fill in first and last name)—as if the rest of the class didn’t know my name!
Everything that followed that ominous start was extemporaneous, a wandering recitation filled with numerous ands, uhs, thens, wells, ain’ts, mispronounced words, poor sentence constructions, conflicting subjects and objects, misuse of adverbs, long looks at one’s feet and even longer (and longing) stares through the classroom windows to the outside world.
Most errors were caught by the teacher, with the resultant corrections and reprimands. If anyone wonders how we got through the first day, just remember that we didn’t change classes during the day—our heinies were glued to our seats all day—we had more than enough time to finish.
A few of our What I Did speeches were mercifully terminated early by the teacher. A classic example of such action was the speech to which we all looked forward, that of a classmate known only by the initials W. A. It isn’t that I’ve forgotten his last name. I remember it well, but I must admit that, for some odd reason, I remember more names of girls than names of boys among my fellow students in elementary school—in fact, I am hard put to remember both given name and surname of any boy from those years (none other than W.A., of course).
W.A.—the boy and his name—is prominent in my memories of elementary school. A unique and very special person, I treasure his memory and could never forget him.
W.A. stuttered—not a slow, drawling stutter one would expect from a Mississippi stutterer but a staccato stutterer, a rapid-fire stutterer, one that soon had the entire class in tears, howling with laughter while our teacher faced away from the class with her gaze apparently fixed on something interesting outside the building.
Although she made no sounds while gazing, W.A.’s speech was apparently so effective that it made her tremble with pleasure—in fact it affected her composure so strongly that she invariably terminated his speech well before he finished. When she told him “That was very good, W.A., thank you,” W.A. always returned her thank you with his own, obviously heartfelt thank you, although it took awhile to return it. Once he got past the tee in thank, the you followed quickly and W.A. could then return to his seat.
We had ample opportunities to develop and perfect thespian skills in our elementary grades. In addition to individual performances in various holiday presentations such as Easter, Halloween, Independence Day and Christmas, we also appeared onstage as a group in the school auditorium, an area that daily doubled as our lunchroom. Each class went onstage en masse, and each student performed—each had a speech to give, a poem to recite, a song to sing, a story to tell, etc.
On a memorable day, perhaps the most memorable in the history of our school, the third grade students’ presentations began with a song by W.A., a heart-wrenching story about a missing cat, one that was last seen running over hill and dale with a dog named Bowser in hot pursuit. Here is the first line of the song, a line that was repeated several times in the song’s chorus:
Has anybody seen my kitty, has anybody seen my cat?
Note the letters b, d, k and c (k sound) in the line—it should not be necessary for me to describe how difficult it was for W.A. to sing that song, but I will attempt to describe the audience’s reaction to the song, a reaction that included faculty, lunchroom employees, visiting friends and relatives and every enrolled student that was fortunate enough to have attended school on that day, including W.A.’s fellow classmates.
The laughter was thunderous, but the applause was even more thunderous, a standing ovation that began just before the conclusion of the song. And for those that may be disposed to criticize the reactions of the audience, we should remember that in those days, particularly in my part of the country, very few things were politically incorrect—actually, neither were there many things that were politically correct.
In order to wrap up this posting, I urge the viewer to understand that W.A. was, without question, one of the most popular students in our school. We mocked him but we also imitated him, not to belittle but to share with him even a small portion of the laughs he garnered and the popularity he enjoyed—because of W.A. every kid in school could qualify as a stand-up comedian. And most important, W.A. was frequently surrounded by a bevy of cute girls. That’s a neat thing, regardless of their motives—like, who cares why?
I can never know whether he enjoyed his popularity or hated it, but in retrospect I suspect that W.A. tended to prolong his stuttering and perhaps even embellished and enhanced it—but I could be wrong.
W.A., if you happen to read this and you enjoyed your popularity, I’m happy for you. If you hated it, please accept my abject and heartfelt apologies. And if you are enrolled and performing in that brightly shining elementary school in the sky I say,
BREAK A LEG!
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Tags: applause, auditorium, bevy, blackboard, break a leg, cat, class, comedian, crotch, elementary, en masse, extemporaneous, hiatus, kitty, poem, recitation, school, song, stutter, stutterer, summer, teacher, thespian, vacation
I recently received this poem in an e-mail sent by a relative in Dallas. Whether true or false, it is a moving tribute to old age and a scathing criticism of how the elderly are perceived by many of us. I am posting it on my blog with the hope that its message reaches many others—and if it changes even one person’s attitude towards the elderly, the effort has been worthwhile.
This is the e-mail and the poem I received, but the poem has undergone many changes since landing in my mailbox. In its wandering around the internet it had collected many faults—missing and misplaced punctuation marks, misspelled words, lines out of sequence and many other problems that restricted a thorough understanding of the work. I feel that my modest efforts improved the message that the poem is intended to convey.
This is the story of the crabby old man, as told in the e-mail:
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte, Nebraska, it was believed that he had left nothing of any value. After his death the nurses were going through his meager possessions and found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Missouri. The old man’s poem, his sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple but eloquent poem.
This “crabby old man,” with nothing else to give others on his departure from this world, has given the world he leaves his richness of thought—he is the author of this anonymous poem, now winging its way across the internet and into the homes and hearts of thousands, perhaps millions.
Crabby Old Man
What do you see, nurses? What do you see?
What are you thinking when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old man, not very wise,
Uncertain of habit with far away eyes?
Who dribbles his food and makes no reply,
When you say in a loud voice, ‘I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice the things that you do,
And forever is losing a sock or a shoe.
Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding and the long day to fill.
Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse, you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am, as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten, with a father and mother,
And brothers and sisters who love one another.
A young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet,
Dreaming that soon now a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at twenty, my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five now, I have young of my own,
Who need me to guide them, and a secure happy home.
A man of thirty, my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At forty my young sons have grown and are gone,
But my woman’s beside me to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty once more babies play ’round my knee,
Again we know children, my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me, my wife now is dead.
I look at the future and shudder with dread,
For my young are all rearing young of their own,
And I think of the years, and the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man, and nature is cruel,
‘Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart,
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass a young man still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, I remember the pain,
And I’m loving and living life over again.
I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast,
And I accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people, open and see,
Not a crabby old man, look closer, see me!
Remember this poem when you next meet an older person, one that you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within.
We will all one day be there also!
The best and most beautiful things of this world can neither be seen nor touched.
They must be felt by the heart . . .
To determine whether the poem is truth or fiction, click on this Crabby old man.
Tags: Dallas, elderly, geriatric North Platte, Internet, Missouri, Nebraska, poem, staff
From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Guest:
Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881, Birmingham, England – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th Century and became known as the People’s Poet.
The poet authored 25 books from 1920 to 1927. In the interests of full disclosure, I confess that whenever I want to express my feelings and my words fail me, regardless of the subject, I will cheerfully and respectfully, without hesitation or remorse, use the words of another to convey my thoughts, with due credit being given, of course, to the other person.
Edgar Guest authored 25 books from 1920 to 1927. The poem which follows is from his All That Matters, published in 1922. I find it amazing that some 87 years ago someone could express so eloquently how we feel about our children and how proud we are of them. This posting is an effort to let our three daughters know how much we love them and how proud we are of them and their families. And perhaps any parent or parents that view the posting may choose to allow Edgar Guest to speak for them. The image below faced the poem—it’s reproduced from a painting by Robert E. Johnston—this is the then part of the above title.
WHEN THE YOUNG ARE GROWN
Once the house was lovely, but it’s lonely here today,
For time has come an’ stained its walls an’ called the young away;
An’ all that’s left for mother an’ for me till life is through,
Is to sit an’ tell each other what the children used to do.
We couldn’t keep ‘em always an’ we knew it from the start;
We knew when they were babies that some day we’d have to part.
But the years go by so swiftly, an’ the littlest one has flown,
An there’s only me an’ mother now left here to live alone.
Oh, there’s just one consolation, as we’re sittin’ here at night,
They’ve grown to men an’ women, an’ we brought ‘em up all right;
We’ve watched ‘em as we’ve loved ‘em an’ they’re splendid, every one,
An’ we feel the Lord won’t blame us for the way our work was done.
They’re clean, an’ kind an’ honest, an’ the world respects ‘em, too;
That’s the dream of parents always, an’ our dreams have all come true.
So although the house is lonely an’ sometimes our eyes grow wet,
We are proud of them an’ happy an’ we’ve nothing to regret.
And this is the now part of the title— it’s a recent photo of our children’s parents, and is included to show viewers how little—or perhaps how much, depending on the viewer—we resemble the parents in Edgar Guest’s poem.
Tags: Edgar Guest, poem, poetry
The purpose of this posting is to share, with anyone and everyone who happens to pass this way, the beautiful thoughts expressed by Samuel Ullman in his poem Youth, excerpts of which appeared recently on Refdesk as the THOUGHT OF THE DAY. The posting is also a recommendation for Refdesk as a home page. Refdesk has an astonishing range—it has never failed me in my searches, regardless of their purpose. Donations to Refdesk are welcomed, but otherwise the service is free!
THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
“Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.” – Samuel Ullman
Here is the poem in its entirety:
Youth, by Samuel Ullman:
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
A brief biography of Ullman (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):
Samuel Ullman (April 13, 1840 – March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian. He is best known today for his poem Youth which was a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur. The poem was on the wall of his office in Tokyo when he became Supreme Allied Commander in Japan. In addition, he often quoted from the poem in his speeches, leading to it becoming better known in Japan than in the United States.
Born in 1840 at Hechingen, Germany to Jewish parents, Ullman immigrated with his family to America to escape discrimination at the age of eleven. The Ullman family settled in Port Gibson, Mississippi. After briefly serving in the Confederate Army, he became a resident of Natchez, Mississippi. There, Ullman married, started a business, served as a city alderman, and was a member of the local board of education.
In 1884, Ullman moved to the young city of Birmingham, Alabama, and was immediately placed on the city’s first board of education.
During his eighteen years of service, he advocated educational benefits for black children similar to those provided for whites. In addition to his numerous community activities, Ullman also served as president and then lay rabbi of the city’s reform congregation at Temple Emanu-El. Often controversial but always respected, Ullman left his mark on the religious, educational, and community life of Natchez and Birmingham.
In his retirement, Ullman found more time for one of his favorite passions – writing letters, essays and poetry. His poems and poetic essays cover subjects as varied as love, nature, religion, family, the hurried lifestyle of a friend, and living “young.” It was General Douglas MacArthur who facilitated Ullman’s popularity as a poet – he hung a framed copy of a version of Ullman’s poem “Youth” on the wall of his office in Tokyo and often quoted from the poem in his speeches. Through MacArthur’s influence, the people of Japan discovered “Youth” and became curious about the poem’s author.
In 1924, Ullman died in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 1994, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Japan-America Society of Alabama opened the Samuel Ullman Museum in Birmingham’s Southside neighborhood. The museum is located in the former Ullman residence and is operated by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
In my not very humble opinion, this is one of the most beautiful songs ever written (title and chorus are in bold italics):
Lean on Me
Sometimes in our lives
we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there’s always tomorrow
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you don’t let show
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
If there is a load you have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me
Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on
So just call on me brother,
when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that
you’d understand
We all need somebody to lean on
Lean on me . . .
All lyrics are property and copyright Bill Withers.
Tags: Alabama, army, Birmingham, Confederate, Family, Germany, Japan, Jewish, MacArthur, Mississippi, museum, Natchez, passion, poem, poetry, Port Gibson, rabbi, refdesk, religion, Samuel Ullman, youth
One of my three princesses, the one that lives, loves and works in Virginia, created a painting for her friend Sue as a house-warming gift. Sue had recently relocated from Virginia to Huntsville, Alabama and needed a mantle-piece decoration suitable to that part of our country. My daughter e-mailed me and included a photo of the painting (shown at right with the proud owners). Check here to read her posting on the painting and its journey to its new home.
This is my reply to her e-mail:
I shore do lak ‘at, especially the sky—and as you said, the trees on the horizon eliminate competition between the clouds and the cotton field.
Beautiful, simply beautiful.
At the instant I viewed this image, a phrase from a refrain immediately popped into my remembering apparatus, a song we learned in Miss Mary’s elementary school, probably around the second or third grade—I hear those gentle voices calling—I googled the phrase, and this is the song:
Old Black Joe
by Stephen C. Foster
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low,
I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.”
Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain,
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again,
Grieving for those now departed long ago,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.”
Where are the hearts once so happy and so free,
The children so dear that I held upon my knee,
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go.
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low,
I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.”
A word of caution—you probably shouldn’t spend a lot of time on Foster’s poem. If you do, you may find yourself becoming misty-eyed and feeling a certain tightening in your throat, a sure indication of a heavy heart and bitter-sweet memories (of course it could be nothing more than a psuedo allergic reaction to the heat and dust and airborne molds found in cotton fields and wooded areas).
Your painting and the poem brought so many memories crowding in that I didn’t have enough room for them—I had to push some aside so I could concentrate on others.
SPECIAL NOTE FOR SUE: She might want to consider printing the poem on a small placard and placing it near the painting—after reading it viewers (anyone over the age of 16 and assuming a reasonable understanding of the English language), would lapse into a moment of reverie, alone with their memories, oblivious to sights and sounds around them, even though they may have never seen a field of cotton, in Alabama or elsewhere.
And then again, maybe not.
Some thoughts on picking cotton:
While in basic military training at the mid-way point in the past century, I was discussing cotton-picking with a new-found friend from Aspermont, Texas. I mentioned that, at the tender age of 11, I picked cotton in Mississippi for a few days. I was never able to pick one-hundred pounds in order to reach the dollar-a-day wage. Some adult males picked as much as 200 pounds in one day by working from dawn to dusk. Early in the season, when the cotton was heavy on the stalks, pickers earned a penny a pound, but later in the season when the cotton was sparse on the stalks, the rate rose to two-cents a pound (it was sparse when I picked it, but my never-indulgent step-father paid me only a penny a pound).
Bummer.
My friend told me his mother picked as much as 800 pounds a day. I figured this was nothing more than a tall Texas tale, but after further discussion I learned that there was a huge difference between the states in the method of removing the cotton from its stalk. In Mississippi we picked the cotton ball out of its bowl—in Texas they pulled the cotton, bowl and all, from the stalk, and occasionally also placed the stem in the cotton sack (inadvertently, of course).
The latest ginning machinery that separated the ball from the bowl had not yet found its way to the deep South. In rural areas Mississippi also lagged behind the rest of the country in electricity, paved roads, water lines and sewers.
I know—I was there. We cooled ourselves with hand-held fans, usually purloined from church benches, we heated our homes with wood-burning open fireplaces, we cooked our meals on wood-burning cast-iron stoves, we did our school homework by lamp-light, we hand-pumped our water from wells, we made the long trip—out to and back from—outdoor privies in daylight and darkness, in the heat of summer and the cold of winter—and the only way we talked to anyone other than family members was either face-to-face or by sending and receiving letters.
Ah, those were the days, my friends.
Tags: acrylic, Alabama, art, Aspermont, canvas, children, cotton, cotton field, English, fireplaces, homes, Huntsville, landscape, Mississippi, Old Black Joe, painting, poem, privies, Stephen Foster, stoves, Texas, Virginia
Before I begin this posting, I must hasten to explain that the blank spot in the above title is used in lieu of the word heck. In consideration of our restrictions on adult content, I was hesitant to use that word—heck—so prominently. I’m hoping that heck will escape the notice of the content police by placing it (burying it) in the text of the posting. And I offer my apologies in advance to any person or persons who might be offended by my use of the word heck. I used heck because I felt that heck would provide suitable emphasis to learning a new word—sprezzatura, a word delightfully foreign and delightfully obscure.
I am probably the only person online who was not familiar with the word sprezzatura. I discovered it yesterday and found it new, intriguing and interesting enough to prompt me to share it with others. Since viewers who consistently return to my blog are without exception erudite, this will serve them only as a refresher. I’m posting this information in the remote possibility that one or more of potential viewers to my blog would, as did I, find the word new and interesting enough to have them yearning for more learning concerning this unique characteristic.
Hey, “Yearning for learning concerning” is sorta rhythmical—kinda poetic, don’t ya think? It sounds like good material for a rap song—I hope one of our far too numerous millionaire rappers picks it up and runs with it.
How about it, Eminem?
50 Cent?
Alicia?
But I digress, so on to the word and its definition:
The March 2009 issue of Texas Monthly included a full-page advertisement (p.126) entitled “Making something difficult look easy,” written by Andrew T. Lyos, a Houston surgeon. Dr. Lyos wrote that he likes to read in his free time and had just finished Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World.
He defined sprezzatura as follows:
“Sprezzatura is an Italian word that has no corresponding English translation. The best way to define it is that it means doing something difficult so well or so easily, that you make it look effortless.”
I immediately applied the characteristics of sprezzatura to a plethora of gorgeously professional photographs and the overwhelming journalistic quality of the narratives which define and support them—both can be viewed at http://cindydyer.wordpress.com/.
I am convinced that Cindy Dyer’s work qualifies for the term sprezzatura—that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. However, at this point I must state, in the interests of full disclosure, that the blogger is one of my three princesses, the one who lives, loves, is loved, works and creates in Northern Virginia. I can also state emphatically that my opinion of her work is in no way influenced by our relationship—well, perhaps a little bit, but not very much—less than one-half of one iota—nay, less than one-fourth of one iota—not even enough to measure.
I found an expanded definition of sprezzatura at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura:
Sprezzatura is a term that originates from Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier. It is defined as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” That is to say, it is the ability of the courtier to display “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them.” Sprezzatura has also been described “as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance.”
The Positive and Negative Attributes of Sprezzatura (also from wikipedia)
Sprezzatura was a vital quality for a courtier to have. Courtiers essentially had to put on a performance for their peers and those who employed sprezzatura created the impression that they completely mastered the roles they played. A courtier’s sprezzatura made him seem to be fully at ease in court and like someone who was “the total master of self, society’s rules, and even physical laws, and his sprezzatura created the distinct impression that he was unable to err.”
However, while the quality of sprezzatura did have its benefits, this quality also had its downfalls. Since sprezzatura made difficult tasks seem effortless, those who possessed sprezzatura needed to be able to deceive people convincingly. In a way, sprezzatura was “the art of acting deviously.” This “art” created a “self-fulfilling culture of suspicion” because courtiers had to be diligent in maintaining their façades. “The by-product of the courtier’s performance is that the achievement of sprezzatura may require him to deny or disparage his nature.” Consequently, sprezzatura also had its downsides, since courtiers who excelled at sprezzatura risked losing themselves to the facade they put on for their peers.
The need for illustrative examples (also from wikipedia)
I have read Castiglione many times and I think the best expression of Sprezzatura (with all of the high stakes it entails) was from an eleven year old boy. He was with a small group of boys in front of a New York office building on a summer day. I was early for an appointment. The boy came skating up to a staircase, hopped his board, and himself up on to the banister, sliding all the way down, nailing the landing. As I was at the base of the stairs I could see what his friends could not: the look of sheer terror as he slid, the look of elation and pride as he landed, and the utter nonchalance that swept over his face as he kicked the tail of his board up into his hand as he turned to his friends as if to say, “whatever.” Benfidar (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC) Benfidar.
Now for the epilogue to this posting
If you have reached this point you now know, at the very least, everything that I know about sprezzatura. You might want to consider tucking the word and its definition away in a memory area from which it can be easily retrieved, and in the future perhaps apply the characteristic to your work and the work of others.
An incidental thought necessitates a pause here: Some words seem to offer themselves up to the possibility of a typographical error. The word “tucking” used in the paragraph above, for example—one look at the keyboard shows why—the “t” and the “f” are perilously close. That’s just a random thought, incidental just as I said—really.
And a final thought on sprezzatura: If you recognize that quality in your own work, acknowledge it and glow with it. If you recognize it in the works of others, tell them and compliment them (you may have to refer them to this posting to hasten their understanding).
I’m not qualified for the label—nothing comes easy for me—but if I were I would appreciate being told, and would readily accept it as a nice compliment, as would others.
Perhaps.
And perhaps not—the characteristic appears to be a double-edged sword.
Tags: 50 Cent, Alicia, banister, Benfidar, Castiglione, court, courtier, double-edge sword, Enimem, genius, Italian, Italy, million, millionaire, New York, Northern Virginia, poem, poet, rap, rap song, sprezzature, staircase, sword, Texas Monthly
My best friend died on Monday, the nineteenth of January 2009, at exactly 3:33 p.m. while I was rushing her to the doctor. She was born with an enlarged heart, a heart which abruptly failed after serving her well for more than 12 years. The friend that died was Annie, a beautiful long-haired calico cat, and a loved and loving member of our family for more than 10 years.
Sue, a dear friend who lives in Alabama, learned of our loss and sent a beautiful sympathy card and a touching consolation e-mail. After reading my response, she sent the following e-mail:
“My heart continues to go out to you and Janie—it truly does take time for a broken heart to heal. Thank you for the touching e-mail and for sharing your heart with me. What a blessing you, Janie and Annie all were to one another—truly one of life’s most precious gifts. I look forward to seeing you both again sometime this year. Meanwhile, keep in mind when you see Annie again, you’ll be seeing Cindy and me also—we’re a package deal.
“With so much heartfelt love, Sue.”
This e-mail was my belated response to Sue’s initial card and e-mail:
“Sue, please forgive us for not responding sooner to your heartfelt e-mail and your beautiful card. Janie and I have had a difficult time dealing with Annie’s death. We have just now been able to discuss her without both of us breaking down. We see her in every room and in every position, and hear sounds, especially during the night, which remind us of her and, for an ever-so-brief moment, bring her back to us. We have had other pets and loved them all, but before Annie we never knew that a creature’s love could be so deep and strong and forgiving, and that such love could be demonstrated in so many ways.
“Annie and I were a couple for ten years, and we remain a couple. Since her death I have come to realize that she and I were, and still are, soul mates, and I believe that our separation is temporary. Yes, I believe that animals have souls, and it appears that Pope John Paul II agreed with me. That can be confirmed at this web site:
http://www.dreamshore.net/rococo/pope.html
“I’ve spent a lot of time online recently. I found a poem, one so sad that it broke my heart, but it is so uplifting that at the same time my heart was breaking, my spirit soared. The poem can be found, with numerous variations, on many web sites by googling “rainbow bridge poem.”
Here is the poem in its entirety:
“Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
“When a pet that has been especially close to someone here dies, that beloved pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.
All the animals that were ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those that were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one thing; they each miss someone very special to them who was left behind.
“They all run and play together, but the day will come when a special one—the most special among the special—will suddenly stop and look into the distance. Her bright eyes are intent. Her eager body quivers. Suddenly she leaves the group and begins to run, flying over the green grass, her legs carrying her faster and faster.
“Annie has spotted me, and when we meet we will cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. Her happy kisses will rain upon me; my hands will again caress her, and I will look again into the trusting eyes of my Annie, so long gone from my life but never absent from my heart.
“Then we’ll cross Rainbow Bridge together. . .”
I took the liberty of changing the poem to make it personal—it wasn’t easy—making the changes was difficult and the tears flowed freely, but the physical catharsis provided some psychological relief—albeit temporary.
Thank you, Sue, for the sympathy and understanding expressed in your e-mail, and thanks for the beautiful card. You’re one of a select group of people, quite rare, who can convey their most profound feelings to others—willingly, unsolicited and without hesitation. Janie and I are proud of your friendship for us and for Cindy (our favorite daughter, but don’t tell the other two!).
May God bless you and keep you—you’re always welcome in our home.
We’ll leave the light on for you.
Tags: Alabama, animal, bridge, cat calico, couple, creature, death, doctor, dreams, Family, friend, heart, love, mate, pet, poem, Pope John Paul II, rainbow, rainbow bridge, soul, soulmates, sympathy, veterinary
The King of Texas 