“It only gets worse, as we get older – the feeling that we hardly have a moment to spare. Time, our lifetime, increasingly comes to seem like a rocket sled into which we are helplessly buckled, speeding through years in seconds while the world blurs past. What we wouldn’t give to have some genie grant us, well, all the time in the world would do for a start that slower time, to the leisurely ticking of which we could take life in on foot, as it were, meet it unhurriedly, and still more unhurriedly watch it unfolding all around us…”
I couldn’t have said better my self. It’s a thought that occurs every year at this time as we are given to looking forward and backward. It is January, named for that two headed god, Janus, who looks forward and backward at the same time. It is a feat I only saw performed by the good Sisters in grade school, who though writing on the blackboard with their backs to the class could reprimand any student by name who began fooling around. I only report this as an observer, not as one subject to that amazing talent (Of course!).
Going back to the file of my January jottings of ’98 I found my sister Winnie’s 1997 Christmas letter. It was a summary of her life. It listed all her children, their children, and their children’s children. It reported on what they were doing. It listed her sisters and brothers and some of their activities. It ended with these words:
“This is not meant as a letter of statistics. It’s just tell all of you the wonders of my life and all of the gifts of my Lord and God whose birth we celebrate with songs of love, wonder and thanks to Him who left Heaven to be born a Babe to live on this Earth and then to die to give us life. Happy Christmas and blessed and healthy New Year. My love to all of you, Winnie (Allen).”
I see that last year at this time we had houseguests. I had to step around bodies as I quietly crept to the kitchen in the early hours. This year we were alone. We attended the candlelight service on Christmas Eve and treated ourselves to a super brunch at the Hilton Hotel in downtown St. Pete’s on Christmas Day. I had talked there about my first “gig” at the Shore Acre’s Christmas party. It was even better this year. I had no one trying to sing along while I played, since Santa, who actually showed up this year, was distributing gifts.
In my looking forward last year, I noted Winnie was going to be a visitor in February. She was and how happy we now are to have the memory of her here in a new home.
I spent time in a dentist chair the other day. It was for three hours. It was generally pain free and consisted mostly of preparing crowns for my front teeth. Sitting there gazing out the window at a monster tree under a gray clouds, I began thinking, among other things, about the word “day”. How did it become what we call the times of light? I had remembered that Genesis tell us. God said “Lux erat”, (Let there be light!), and there was. God then separated the light from darkness. “God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness He called ‘night’.” The Latin reads: “Appelavitque lucem Diem, et tenebras Noctem…” I only include it to show that it is does not seem to be the origin our word “day”.
The Revised Oxford English Dictionary (on the net) traces the word back to the (OE) Saxon word “doeg” (like “dag” in German). The word meant, “to burn”. The etymologist Funk states: “The central idea of the word ‘day’ is ‘burning heat’, for day was christened in those tropical countries where the heat was burning during the 12 hour period when the sun was shining”. Problem solved. I know none of you lose any sleep over this sort of thing.
My fascination for word origins did tempt me at one time to invest in OED, Oxford English Dictionary. It is a steal now on CD for only $395. The 20-volume set cost $995. But for now I think I’ll just stick to the Revised Version on the net. I have had enough comments about ‘men are just boys with more expensive toys’ than to encourage another one.
We are looking forward to seeing John and Mary here in January, Bill with a quick stop in February, and a longer visit hopefully in March. Also in March we are going cruising with the Berger’s from Tampa to Mexico via Key West. January also sees June named to serve on the Church council. She turned down their request to act as Financial Secretary. It had too many public confrontations to please her. She demonstrated her continuing ability to cook up a storm by have a dinner for eight for New Year’s Day It was a custom we had established a Dorcas street, and so we begin it again. We are however restricted, even more than at Dorcas Street, as to numbers. Three couples is the max. One of the couples was our pastor and his wife, Jerry and Connie Straszheim. Both have become good friends to us, these new comers to St. Petersburg.
As June and I walked in the early Monday morning darkness, it occurred to me that the Church has become a large part of our week. June counts receipts on Monday morning; I attend a men’s breakfast on Tuesday mornings; on Wednesday evening we attend a community dinner there; on Friday mornings (and at other times when called) June goes to the church office and helps stuff literature for mailing and distribution, and on Sunday morning we attend a communion service.
I just finished Tom Wolfe’s new novel “A Man in Full”. It was good reading and an interesting weaving of the characters with the plot. I did find some of his “stream of consciousness” depictions and his descriptions of surroundings, a bit over done. Some weeks ago there was a report of Norman Mailer and John Updike commenting on the book as “entertaining” but not “Literature”. The reporter expressed the opinion that their “criticism” sounded more like sour grapes. While reading the novel I came across what Tom Wolfe had a character say about “Literature”. His character is a retired literature teacher. One of the main characters in the book, Conrad, is now in the ex-professor’s home as nursing assistant to help him. They discuss Literature. The dialogue goes like this:
(Ex-Prof.) “…How old are your?” “Twenty-Three”, said Conrad… “Twenty Three”, said the old man, still not looking at him. “That’s a good age to be interested in literature. You have so much time…you have so much; it must seem to be spilling out of your pockets. You don’t need to worry about what an incalculable luxury literature is. Entire civilizations are founded without any literature at all and without anybody missing it. It’s only later on when there’s a big enough class of indolent drones to write the stuff and read the stuff that you have literature. When I saw those eager hands sticking up as I taught, I always wanted to tell them what I’ve just told you, but what right did I have to try to play the iconoclast after making a living my whole life taking it seriously, or at least with a straight face?”…(And further on) “Literature is a sort of dessert”…”Life’s about things you know even less about. Life’s about cruelty and intimidation.”
So Tom, at least somewhat, through the eyes and voice of his character, the Ex-Literature Professor is responding to those who say he is not writing Literature! Mailer and Updike referred to him as a “journalist”, I suppose to distinguish him from a “Novelist”. I’d tale a journalist any day, like Mark Twain (Sam Clemens). He is a man where the action is. The Novelist, you picture is the loner gone off to some remote spot to commune with his muse. Incidentally, Mailer and Updike’s criticism hasn’t affected the book’s sales; it is in the number one spot for the seventh straight week in the N.Y. Times Book Review.
We wish you all once again a Happy and Healthy New Year.